Photographic Club

This is the first year of the Photographic Club's existence, and considering everything it has been fairly successful. As regards membership, there is no cause for dissatisfaction, although the Club has been, so to speak, just finding its feet. The Club has a membership of over thirty and an average attendance at meetings of about a dozen.

Meetings: On Tuesday, March 27th, the inaugural meeting was held, a constitution discussed and passed, and officers elected. The business was concluded as quickly as possible and Mr. A. S. Mitchell gave an instructive and enjoyable lecture on portrait photography, illustrated with many examples of his own work. The next meeting was not until May 2nd, when Mr. C. P. S. Boyer, the well-known Wellington photographer, gave a beginners' lecture, dealing with exposure, development, printing and with composition in a simple way. Mr. Boyer also had some of his own fine pictures. Composition and harmony in photography was also the subject of Mr. J. W. Chapman-Taylor, who addressed the Club on May 29th. In this very interesting talk pictorial technique was fully dealt with and explained by a man who has had wide experience and many years of pictorial photography. He strongly advocated purism in photography, for, he said the convincing truthfulness of the tonal values of the picture produced entirely by photography was its chief justification for photography as an art.

On the 19th of June, Mr. J. W. Johnson gave a demonstration of enlarging. He wasted no rime in words but asked his audience to gather round the enlarger, and as he made his enlargement, he explained every step in the process, giving as he did so many practical tips. Time passed very quickly, and after making half a dozen 12in. x 10in. pictures, Mr. Johnson concluded by showing one or two after-treatments of enlargements.

The last meeting up to the end of the second term was addressed by Mr. E. F. Hubbard, of the Railways Laboratory at Lower Hutt. Mr. Hubbard spoke on a subject on which he is well qualified to speak, Micro-Photography.

A Field Day has been held this year by the Club, and a visit was paid to the Butterfly creek for the purpose of photography. The weather on the day decided upon (22nd July) was rather unsettled, and showery rain spoilt the afternoon somewhat, although no one could complain that the skies lacked the pictorial necessity of clouds. Indeed some very fine cloud effects were to be obtained at times.

The only other activity of the Club has been in connection with the dark-room. Thanks are due to the Geology Department for the use of their dark-room, which has been fitted out by means of the Students' Association Grant with all the apparatus necessary for developing, printing and enlarging. Any member of the Club may make use of the dark-room, and it is to be hoped that it will be of benefit to some who have previously lacked the amenities of a dark-room. If it induces some to do the fascinating after-processes of photography themselves, instead of sending their films to the chemist, then its purpose has to a great extent been achieved.