Can you please share some information about the club? EG: who you are, where and when you meet and how many members.
Sunshine Coast Photography Club started almost 30 years ago. It was known for the first 25 years as Caloundra Camera Group but then a couple of years ago, it was time for a change. We thought it should change to encompass the whole of the Sunshine Coast, so the new name came into being!
We meet twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month at the small hall behind Caloundra Indoor Bowls Club in Golden Beach, Caloundra. We have just started back for the year (2025) and currently have 48 financial members plus 4 life members and, as is usual at the start of the year, we’ve got a few stragglers yet to pay their annual fees, so we should be up around 55/56 members within the next few weeks.
Would you share some information about how the club works, what happens at the meetings? Competitions? Lecturers?
For many years, the club has worked around holding two meetings a month. On the first meeting of the month, the 2nd Wednesday, we hold a competition night – all members can enter these competitions. We have four categories in the competition each month – Set Subject DPI (the set subject is different for each month), Open DPI, Creative DPI and Open Print.
Members are split up into three grades – A, AB, and B. When a person first joins the club, they are asked to submit about 6-7 images to our Grading Committee (made up of three A Graders) and, based on those submissions, the member is given a grade. Up until the start of this year, we only ever had two grades – A and B – however, as our membership numbers have grown and after a lot of discussion, the committee put forward the suggestion that we have three grades, A, AB, and B.
A Grade is made up of the best photographers of our Club. We like to think that members should consider it an honour to be put into A Grade. It is an honour that must be earned and maintained over the years of membership. So, while being made an A grader is not a guarantee that a member will always remain in that grade, they are expected to maintain their quality of work and earn the right to stay there!
Our second meeting of the month, on the 4th Wednesday, is called “Share Night” and we usually have a presenter/speaker or workshop, plus a few smaller items like “One on One” (when we learn about one particular member.) We often ask one of our A Grade members to elaborate on the next upcoming Set Subject via a short presentation, so that all members understand the definitions given.
As well as our two nighttime meetings each month, we have days out, excursions, trips away and so much more. These events are always an opportunity for members to get to know each other much better. They are always lots of fun, we learn a lot and they are very popular with most members. This year we have an afternoon at Cotton Tree planned, a get-together with our neighbouring clubs – Gympie and Caboolture and a trip to Lake Redbrook up near Childers. Some of us are attending the Photographic Society of Queensland Convention in Hervey Bay and, in the middle of the year, several of us will be off to Kilcowera Station, a cattle station, for five days – Kilcowera is just outside Thargomindah in far west Qld.
Do you have a committee and who how does that work?
We have a committee made up of President, Secretary, Treasurer, DPI Coordinator, Print Coordinator, External Comp Coordinator, and several ordinary members. There are usual around eight members on the committee who are elected at an AGM held each year in February. Between the members of the committee, jobs are undertaken and shared and a meeting is held once a month to ensure the smooth running of the club.
The Committee works hard to ensure that the Club provides all our members with a place to improve their photography, learn with others who share their interest and give everyone the chance to meet socially with some great friends!
You recently won the Tewantin Shield. What is that and where was that competition held?
Tewantin Shield is a photographic competition held each year for clubs in the Wide Bay/Sunshine Coast/North Brisbane area. Not all clubs compete in it, but it is open to any club in that area wishing to take part – it is a digital competition only, no prints. Regular subjects are Pictorial (Open), People and Nature plus one or two specialist subjects which change each year. The competition has been running for well over 15 years, originally hosted by Nambour Camera Club (which has now closed) but now hosted by Gympie Camera Club.
How many clubs entered the competition and were they all Sunshine Coast based?
If you looked through the years, it is usually between 5 to 10 clubs that take part in the Tewantin Shield. These clubs are Hervey Bay (2 clubs), Tin Can Bay, Gympie, Sunshine Coast (formerly Caloundra), Caboolture, Peninsula, Burpengary, Maryborough, and Noosa.
Tell me a little about the various categories and any standout winners that the club had.
In September 2024, for the last Tewantin Shield Competition, the subjects were Pictorial, People and Nature, with the two special subjects for that year being Long Exposure and Action. The special subjects for 2025 were Freeze Frame and Black & White.
Each club is allowed to enter up to six images per section/subject. For clubs with more than 30 members, like ours, the limit is a maximum of two images per member. The images are judged by a panel of 3 judges, who can each give a maximum score of 5 to any image, so a maximum of 15 in total per image. In 2024, our club managed to get high scores for most of our submitted images. We ended up with a total score of 273 overall, with Gympie hot on our heels with their score of 270. Our score made us the overall winners of the Tewantin Shield, the first time in the last ten years that we have won it.
One of our members got the best score in Long Exposure. That was Peter Hyndman with his image called “White Shoe Shuffle,” whilst David Symonds came 2nd in Nature with his image “Jellyfish”.
How did it feel bringing the trophy back to the members of the club?
We were all so excited to win the Shield. A sizeable number of us attended the judging and while we knew we had to be pretty close to winning, we weren’t sure. That was until it was announced! It was really exciting, and it felt so good to come home with the shield and pass on the good news to all our members.
For a budding photographer who wants to join up to the club, what is your process?
For anyone who is interested in photography, joining our club gives them a fantastic opportunity to learn. Anyone is welcome to come along to a couple of meetings to see what we do. I always encourage them to come to the two meetings held each month as they are each so different. Judging nights are interesting, and new people can learn so much from the various judges that we have.
On our Share Nights, we either have a presenter or workshop, with a couple of other activities too. Sometimes we show slideshows of activities that have been undertaken outside of normal meeting times. Sometimes we hold a One-on-One session, where one of our experienced members interviews another member, enabling us to hear all about their photographic story.
Once someone decides to join, they will be asked to pay a one-off joining fee of $50 and then from that point on there is an annual fee of $100.00. They are then asked to register on our MyPhotoclub website. Then once they are ready, they can submit around 5-6 images to our Grading Committee to see which grade they will be put into. From the start of 2025, we have three grades – A, AB, and B. Beginners usually start of in B Grade and then, over time, will hopefully work their way up to at least AB Grade and possibly A Grade (our best photographers).
Do you have mentors for new photographers?
On request, we have a mentoring programme. We hold a list of our A Grade photographer who are willing to help out anyone. Whether our new photographers are a beginner or simply someone who may be needing help, we try to match them up with a mentor we feel they can relate to easily. Often when we are away on one of our trips, we find that everyone helps each other out depending upon what we are photographing.
What does 2025 hold for the club?
2025 is proving to be yet another busy year. As a Club, we will be entering several external competitions. We started the year off being invited to take part in a Nature Photography Competition hosted by Camberwell Camera Club in Victoria.
Only 10 images were to be submitted across 7 specific nature subjects, with a maximum of only one image per member. We believe we have chosen some of the best images that members of our club have taken over the last twelve months as our entries and we are now awaiting results which will be announced in May.
Currently members are being asked to submit images for consideration in our club entry in the Australian Cup, a national competition which opens in May. Following that, there will be the River City print competition, the Inter club competition, and lastly, Tewantin Shield again.
We have already had a Camera Capers outing in February to Cotton Tree, followed by a get-together with Caboolture and Gympie clubs in March at the Caboolture Historical Village. We are off to Lake Redbrook Holiday Retreat, just outside Childers in April, then some of us are off to the Photographic Society of Qld Convention at Hervey Bay at the start of May. We will possibly have a visit out to Kenilworth in May too, followed by a day trip to Brisbane in June.
We have a big trip planned for the end of July/start of August out to Kilcowera Cattle Station near Thargomindah – currently that area is suffering some devastating floods, so we hope the planned trip will still be able to go ahead. The second half of the year will build up to the end of our monthly competitions, which in turn leads to our Awards Night in December. So, there is never a dull moment in the club!
