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First Salon at The Royale
On Friday, July 17th, we held our first Salon get together at The Royale. Both current and prospective subscribers attended a wonderful evening of discussions, prints and gear sharing and plans for futures events. We met new photo enthusiasts that brought some great ideas and overall great energy to the evening. Our regulars went out of their way to make the new folks feel welcomed and by the end of the evening it was evident that a good time was had by all.
The ownership at the Royale has offered to host our future salons and we are very grateful that this wonderful pub can become our satellite headquarters, and in the future provide a venue to hang our work! Most of the evening was spent getting to know each other and catching up with old friends about their new work and future plans. It was also nice to see some new faces and hear about what drew them to film photography, including the kind of work they want to do. Many said that this is exactly what they are looking for, a safe and encouraging community of like-minded artists.
Volunteers are welcome, get Involved with the future of Brick City
To truly really serve St. Louis’ artist community, Brick City photography Center should be a place that is positioned for growth as well as change. One of the best ways to stimulate growth that has an almost organic feel is not for the organization to lead. We should be inspired by the artists who comprise it. For that we need a dedicated group of volunteers. To this end we have created some committees that should help focus our energies where they need to go.
In successful organizations, the people involved make things happen, not the other way around. Getting involved as a volunteer is a great way not only to help BCPC but being involved with a group of creative people helps you grow as an artist too. It’s not easy to be creative in a bubble. I’ve seen folks in our Wednesday night darkroom learn new things and improve their skills because we are developing the kind of community that understands the value of passing on knowledge and inspiring someone else. That is what creating a community of like-minded folks is all about.
We have six committees that have recently been formed, each meets separately from the group on their own. They are as follows:
Programs. Helps determine what we offer to the public and how we will do it.
Subscriptions. Recruits new subscribers and evaluates programs for enjoyment and effectiveness.
Finance. Helps to determine the organization's budget and maintains accurate bookkeeping.
Governance. Keeps BCPC on the straight and narrow. Determines rules and procedures that will help us serve our community
Marketing. Gets the word out about who we are and what we do.
Communications. Makes sure our subscribers and users know what the organization is up to. Also helps to update and maintain our website.
Being in on the beginning of anything is exciting, joining a committee or volunteering in other activities can make it even more so!
We at BCPC look forward to your input and seeing your passion come to fruition!
Why I Started Brick City
Starting Brick City Photography Center has been my retirement dream for quite some time now. I envisioned a place where people interested in film photography and darkroom techniques can get together and form a community that is supportive of each other and continues developing what motivated artists can do in the darkroom. But why? True, I have a personal darkroom so why bother with all of the expense and paperwork to set up a nonprofit organization, after all I got mine! That's a fair question that I've been asked many times and it deserves an honest answer.
I don’t want to see the traditional chemical darkroom fade out of existence, it's too important and integral to the art of photography. Some may view the decline of the darkroom as the natural progression of progress in the art form, but that is a tragic simplification of the issue at hand. While it is true that film photography is currently experiencing what many call a renaissance with the introduction of new film stocks, new film cameras and a significant rise in the sales of film worldwide, darkrooms are being eliminated from curriculums in high schools and universities nationwide in favor of digital programs. We in St. Louis are fortunate to have darkrooms still available in our Community College system, the problem of where someone who completes the course can continue developing and printing film. Aside from setting up one's own darkroom there is no community alternative for darkroom use. Not within hundreds of miles of our metropolitan area.
On January 7, 1839 the invention of the photographic process, later called daguerreotype, invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, was formally announced in Paris, France by Francois Arago, the permanent secretary of the Académie des Sciences. This was the official recognition that a revolutionary image-making process existed.
The announcement described Daguerre’s process as a new method capable of producing highly detailed images, directly from nature, formed by light action and required no drawing skills. At the time the news was received with astonishment and skepticism, but it spread rapidly around the world.
In US, the first daguerreotypes were made in late 1839 by pioneers like D. W. Seager and Joseph Saxon. By 1840, the daguerreotype was booming.