Re-established photography club attracts many students

In early November, photography club members hiked up to Hunter’s Point at Fremont Older Open Space Preserve in Cupertino for their first photoshoot, observing and taking pictures of flowers, park benches and everything in between. The trail began at the bottom of a hill, winding up to the highest point. The view at Hunter’s Point showed an expanse from Cupertino to the San Francisco bay, cars and houses looking like ants.

Junior Usman Khan, one of the officers of the club, walked around, providing his best advice on how to shoot in manual mode.

After several years of inactivity due to lack of attendance and reduced interest along with the fact that club officers forgot to turn in exit forms, the photography club was restarted this year by juniors Usman Khan, Muthu Palaniappan, Kitty Huang and senior Aden Choy.

“Photography is a really cool thing to learn, and it's not that hard of a hobby to pick up,” Palaniappan said. “So we decided to restart the club to try and teach people how to take more professional photos.”

Khan, who came here from Lynbrook High School last year, had specifically looked forward to joining a photography club — until he realized that there was no club available at the school.   During Club Fair — when photography club officially re-opened — students showed their excitement for the new club, with 75 students signing up. Thirty-five showed up for the first meeting.

“So far it's been good, I've been learning about different functions on the DSLR and other functions I didn't know about before,” sophomore Ritika Kuppam said. “I've always looked at different pictures and wonder how I can take such nice pictures like that, so it’s been cool.”

The club meets every other Monday at lunch. During the first few meetings, members learned about manual shooting, which allows photographers to adjust the settings, such as exposure, shutter speed and aperture, on their camera.

One of the club’s first outside activities was the photoshoot at Fremont Older where nine club members and three officers showed up. As a fun incentive, members could submit their pictures from the photoshoot for the club members to vote for and the winner gets free donuts.

“Being with a group of people all taking photos is motivating, and it encourages me to try taking photos that the others aren't,” junior club member Dermot Gleeson said. “I decided to join the club because being in a group of people with similar interests is motivating.”

Due to the positive reception from all the members, Khan is confident in club’s future.

“We will keep the club going through passionate love for the amazing hobby of photography, and creating an army out of dedicated members,” Khan said.