Basingstoke Camera Club - a brief history

Time gone by

Unfortunately, little is known of the workings of the Club much before the nineteen-sixties.  It is however a matter of recorded fact that the Club's annual exhibition was advertised in a book dealing with "all things modern in photography", published in 1926! And it is known that the Club was active much earlier than this in the 1900's, in the pioneering days of photography.

Thereafter we are dependant upon the memories of our longer-serving members, by which means we can know the Club was quite active in the sixties, and was one of the founder member clubs of the Southern Photographic Federation. Over this more recent past several individuals have devoted much of their free time to the running of the Club, and these are remembered as life vice-presidents or by giving their name to one of the competitions which are held each year.

Unfortunately, there is little documentary evidence of the work of the club in former years, but sample programmes from the early '70s shows that the format of the evenings' entertainment was broadly similar to that of the present day club, being a mixture of competitions, lectures, slide shows and practical evenings.

The Club has met in a mixture of places: members' homes, Chineham Hall, where unfortunately vandalism drove us out, local community centres, where once we not only managed to meet rent-free, but had a bar in the corner(!), a local arts centre, Fairfields Arts Centre, where the management thinking was to further the aims of all forms of artistic endeavour, including photography.

Unfortunately, a change in their management policy meant another change, and we found ourselves at the Fairfields Primary School, which was not really suitable. And now we find ourselves meeting in The Sycamore Centre in Winklebury, which is a much nicer meeting place.

Exhibitions

Originally we had an Open Exhibition every year for both prints and slides, with a long and distinguished history of its own.  This was well supported, with entries from many photographers from all over the UK. But due to problems in finding a venue following changes to the main town library, our traditional venue, this could only be held on a reduced scale every other year.  In place of the Open, a members only exhibition has been held in the intervening years. This has less of an impact, but is nonetheless a good platform for members to show their work.  This year sees the return of the Open Exhibition in November at the Willis Museum, but we are also to have a members print exhibition at the Fairfields Arts Centre.

Processing Methods

At one time, of course, all amateur photography, and much professional work, was entirely in black and white, a reality which extended until the 1980’s when colour processing became within the reach of the hobbyist photographer.

In the early 90’s, with the continuing improvement in photographic emulsions and materials, was a shift towards trade processing,and towards the end of the 20th century, the arrival of the Personal Computer and image manipulating software, the face of photography changed again, and now in 2007 Digital Imaging is readily available to all, and the club has seen a number of new members who have only ever used digital cameras.

Basingstoke Camera Club has tried to keep up with the pace of change by regularly reviewing competition rules at each successive AGM until today all disciplines and interests are catered for within the club. Modern and traditional methods compete side by side, each with their own advocates, who may never agree on the methods used, but who share a common interest in the finished image giving a message or telling a story as photography has done down the years.

The members of Basingstoke Camera Club continue to tackle the challenge of recording life in Basingstoke, and we hope our work will be seen by future generations as a genuine record of this era in history produced by an enthusiastic group of photographers.