Sophomore Navya Chawla, the outreach officer for the photography club, crouched over her computer, dragging designs and text boxes onto a blank Canva slide. The rest of the officers sat around the table in the library, voting for which photo in the travel category was the best. As they discussed the photos, Chawla edited the names onto the Canva slides. These certificates were later presented to the winners of the club’s annual showcase event.
The Photography Club hosted its first such event on April 18 from 3-4 p.m. in the school’s library. Inspired by the Soundings magazine exhibition earlier in the year, their showcase primarily focused on displaying student-created works in order to raise money to buy new cameras for the club members.
The officers encourage anyone to submit their photography into different categories such as travel, food and model photography. During the club’s biweekly meetings, officers focus on one of the categories and present the weekly photo challenge, where members take a photo using the techniques they learned during the meeting. Members can then submit a photo for a chance of being the challenge winner and having their work displayed on the club’s Instagram.
Separate showcase submissions and ones from previous weekly challenges were eligible to be displayed at the showcase. The selected photos were then sold on merchandise in the form of tote bags or print-outs during the exhibition. The club was able to fund these items from last year’s fundraiser at Club Fest.
The club was originally founded at least 10 years ago, but disbanded twice until fall of 2022, when current club president senior Kylee O’Brien restarted the club.
“The goal was to teach people how to take photos using a professional camera, as well as how to edit those photos and the different types of styles and jobs there are,” O’Brien said.
Originally, the showcase was solely meant to display the work of their members. However, after receiving many questions about club cameras, the officers decided it would also be a good idea to fundraise for them.
The idea of a showcase came from one of the members during a meeting.
“Someone had written ‘photography show’ and all of our officers thought that it was a great idea, but it didn’t end up happening last school year because all of us were very inexperienced with managing a club and weren’t able to schedule the event,” O’Brien said.
Learning from last year, the club made sure to book a venue earlier and reach out to administrators to get the event idea authorized.
Awards were also handed out at the showcase, including the People’s Choice Awards, which went to senior Adeena Kadire for her striking photo of a beach at sunset.
Courtesy of SHS Photography Club
Senior Adeena Kadire’s coastal picture, which won the People’s Choice Award.
In the end, a couple of dozen people came to the event. While O’Brien thinks that the turnout was pretty successful for the first year, she hopes that with better advertising efforts next year, more people will be able to attend.
“Our goal was to show how much effort and energy all of our officers put into organizing the event,” O’Brien said. “[We want to] show how talented our members are and encourage them to keep going on with photography and to not lose their passion.”
