Several years ago, at my Uncle’s urging, I started attending the Western Wisconsin Photo Club. At that point, I was shooting with a Canon Powershot G3 (a point and shoot), couldn’t have told you what f-stop or shutterspeed meant and wasn’t really interested in other people telling me what was wrong with my photos. Besides, I had access to that online. But I started attending meetings and began to see the value in actually being able to talk in person with other photographers and not only have my work critiqued but to critique the work of others as well.
But in addition to that, the club was a portal to discovering what an incredible number of active photographers there are in the Twin Cities area. A lot of people aren’t aware of just how big the photography network is in this area and just how many events and activities are occurring all the time. So I’d like to start profiling the photography opportunities and resources that are available in the Twin Cities metro area and surrounding. I’ll keep it to once a week or less though because I know not all my readers are local. 
Since I started with a camera club, that’s where we’ll start here, too. There are 15 camera clubs in the area! There are so many folks who tell me that they wish they had A camera club in their area. Fifteen is an astounding number. There’s even a governing council, the Twin Cities Area Council of Camera Clubs (TCACCC). Their website has a list of all the member clubs. The clubs come in all varieties, some are print only; many are print, slide and digital; some are topic specific; some are only for women – check out the list and see which ones meet close to you and then drop in for a meeting.
In addition, the TCACCC hosts the annual Spring Break Seminar (pdf) which is a two-day event with workshops, guest speakers, vendors, animals and other assorted goodies. This year’s event is March 29-30. If you’re lucky, you might get to see something like this.
And an upcoming event:
Photoshop CS3 Creativity Tour with Bert Monroy – Friday March 14 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Class Schedule Includes: Layers and Channels: What it is All About; Pen and Brush Techniques: Making it Real; Compositing and Retouching: Making it Look Good; Special Effects: Your Creativity Unleashed; Filters: The Final Touch. $99 ($79 for NAPP members). More info…
I’m looking forward to this segment of the blog and hope you find it useful!
