St George Leagues Club Photographic Society
Supporting Our Members
From as young as I can remember I was interested in photography mostly because my father was a real camera and super 8 fanatic. He had all the equipment, including a box brownie and other very old cameras, movie cameras, lighting equipment for the movie cameras, projectors and screen.
We have memories from Dad and Mum’s young days and from all through our lives both in photos, slides and movies. It’s great to sit down and go through them from time to time but we have so many albums it would take months to see them all. A few of the older super 8 movies were transferred to video quite a few years ago but not all of them and now we have to start off from the start and transfer them to CD (a big project for the future).
From early on I would take my camera to all functions we would attend, birthdays, weddings, christenings etc. and I became a familiar figure at these functions with my camera and from that I have been specifically asked to be official photographer at various functions but don’t do it much anymore.
In the early 90’s a friend of mine, who knew I was into photography, asked me to come to the St George camera club as they were having a special lecture that day and from then on I joined the camera club and have been a member ever since. I was the social secretary for a couple of years and on the committee when Des Crawley was president.
This is where I learned to develop monochrome film and prints with the help of a few of the club’s members who gave generously of their time and knowledge. I set up a darkroom in the laundry and had the whole “kit and caboodle” (chemicals, trays, enlarger etc.). We also went on lots of photo shoots and weekends away which were great fun.
In 1993 I commenced the Photographic Certificate course at Sydney TAFE, which is a two year course, but unfortunately I only completed the first year of that course as I got married and moved to Newcastle.
On return from Newcastle in 1997 I re-joined the camera club and have been here ever since.
“Over the last few years I have not done as much photography as I would like because of various personal circumstances etc. but hope to get my “mojo” back soon.”
I don’t have any real preference over one style of photography as I enjoy most subjects, but I am not as creative as I would like, so I have to try and spend more time in Photoshop and on the internet looking at other photographers’ work to get inspired. Also, I get totally inspired by our guest nights at the club with all the interesting photographers and club members that come along and talk about their photography.
Thanks to Nick for asking me to do this and I hope members have enjoyed my little story and images.