The Photography Club here at Avon was one of the first clubs I joined. It is generally a great club, as everyone in the club is very interested in photographing the world around them and sharing those moments with others. The club now is currently led by Ms. Pinton, the art director, and Ran Tao, an excellent member of the class of 2016. Under their guidance, the club successfully hosted the Annual Avon Digital Photography Contest twice. This is a contest that the club decided to host that is open to the entire Avon community — faculty and students. It is designed to inspire the community in photography, and express the idea that everyone can be a photographer. The contest shows that there is no need for a professional camera; you can take award wining photographs with just your daily phone.
The club members gather once a week during the Monday club period. We often go down to Beaver Pond or other places on the beautiful Avon campus to capture the beautiful scenes that are around us every day. Ms. Pinton is always there to help. She is very good at guiding people to learn: not just teaching them but guiding the student to experiment by himself. She believes that you only truly learn by trying, and you may even find more fun skills that others might not know by trying it out.
The Photography Club currently has many advantages: the members share experiences with each other, and Ms. Pinton gives a lot of useful tips while we shoot. By joining the club, I have significantly improved my photography skill. I think the biggest impact the club had on me is that now I no longer think photography as only a hobby to entertain myself — I know it can also help other people. As a result, I joined the school communication team as a photographer this year to present the beautiful Avon campus and great community to the entire world.
I believe there are several things we can improve on. The first is that the club did not provide many chances for us to communicate with professionals, and it would be great to host some workshops and invite professional photographer to come in and talk next year. Second, the club is not well presented to the entire Avon community. We are open to the entire Avon community, but from the participation number on the photo contests we can clearly see that not so many people are involved in it. We will try to bring photography into every Avonian’s life by hosting some workshop that is targeted towards students who have no experience with photography.