I heard about the FotoClub Cuenca a few months ago, but between my crutches and the December holidays, tonight was the first time I was able to attend.  I knew almost nothing about the group other than they are the Camera Club for Cuenca, and therefore my best chance of getting back into a photography circle to improve the quality of my work.

I showed up at 7:30, which was the announced time.  There were only three other people there at the time — Julie (a gringo friend visiting Cuenca that I had convinced to join me), the president of the club, and Pablo (a member).  Everyone spoke English, so I was heartened, though knew that would be short-lived.  The president told me that everyone always come late, because after all, this is Ecuador… ☺ Sure enough, by 7:40 the room had filled up with roughly 30 members.

Pablo came over and sat near Julie and me, and every so often we asked him to explain what was going on, since the Spanish was rapid-fire and often over our heads.  He was a life saver, and helped keep the night a positive experience.

Club meetings are on the first and third Wednesday of each month, at La Riera restaurant (a change in location for 2014) at 7:30. The format of the meeting is that each member can bring in two images on a USB stick, which is given to the president for copying onto the club computer at the beginning.  Any subject is allowed, unless there is a “topic challenge” for that week.  

They then present each photograph in sequence, allowing anyone in the club to comment on it.  There were three or four people that mostly dominated the discussion, in particular filling in when nobody else would speak up.  By the end of the night, most members had said something on some photo though.  I never spoke up because of my limited Spanish.  However, several times I was trying to formulate how to say a thought I had, only to hear another member say it in fluent Spanish.  I was happy to have both had the same thought, and to have been able to understand the speaker!  Overall, I figure I understood maybe 10% of the comments that were made during the night.

After all photographs have been commented on, they are shown in groups of three for a “pre-vote” to select the better ones.  That set is then shown one at a time, and everyone can raise their hands as many times as they want for all the images they like.  The hands are counted and the name of the photo is changed to reflect the count.  When done, the top three vote-receivers get to announce who the photographer was and a short statement about the image.  Those three images will then be published on the club’s web site.

The group here is much younger than we had at the Berkeley Camera Club back in California, where most of the members were retired.  FotoClub is mostly composed of 20-something members.  It is clear in looking at the photos that they do not have quite the same range of experience of some of the senior members in Berkeley.  

In the next few meetings I will start submitting my own images.  I am particularly interested to discover if my style of images meet with local approval. Watch This Space to hear how I do…