VanDigiCam

By Rachael Ashe

We call ourselves VanDigiCam. Vancouver Digital Camera. It's not entirely appropriate; many of our members tend to shoot with film cameras more often than with digital. But we've let the name stick.

The very first VanDigiCam meet was held on March 3, 2005 at Wicked Cafe in Vancouver...a venue that served as our regular meeting place in the early days of the group. The meeting was initiated by Laura Grace Bordeaux, who was new to the city and looking for a means to meet people with a mutual interest in photography. Little did she realize that her efforts would bring together such a terrific group of people and build a very tightly knit community.

I discovered VanDigiCam a month after it began. I'd been living in Vancouver for just under a year and was still feeling very new to the city. Like Laura Grace, I was looking to meet new people, and the commonality of photography was definitely a draw. I was very nervous because I was skeptical of meeting people through the Internet. I didn't know what to expect or what the people would be like. Laura Grace warmly welcomed me but many of the others seemed shy, awkward and geeky - all personality traits I could relate to, but it made it hard to make conversation. I'll admit I was uncomfortable because my picture was taken more times than I was spoken to. We eventually left the cafe and went on a photo walk in the neighbourhood, something I would normally do on my own. It was my first experience of taking pictures in a group and I wasn't sure I liked it. It seemed to lack the intimacy I normally found in photography. I had mixed feelings about the whole experience; I was glad I'd attended, but unsure if I'd want to do again.

Looking back, I made the right decision to keep attending. Now I can't imagine my life without VanDigiCam. Not only has the group been a gateway to meeting a diverse group of friends, it has also been an unexpected source of new ideas, inspiration and personal growth. And let's not forget the fun! I've taken to shooting with funky cameras, like the Holga, experimented with different films, and gotten into the habit of taking my camera everywhere. I've never been more motivated to keep shooting, or to push myself farther with my work, and I don't think my photography has ever been better.

I've come to value this community as a way to learn and grow as an artist. To a certain degree, my personal creativity cannot happen in a vacuum. I never understood this as I do now - not until I moved to Vancouver, joined Flickr and became an active member in VanDigiCam. These creative people offer support and understanding; I share with them, learn from them, bounce ideas off them. Before I joined this group I would rarely show my work; now I appreciate having an audience for what I create. They help me find validation for what I do...and I get to be around people who share a love for the same things.

The most surprising personal development to come out of my involvement with VanDigiCam came when I took on the role as a facilitator to the group. It has always been my natural tendency to organize and bring people together, but I never would've suspected I could do this on a larger scale. I love to find fun things for people to do and with VanDigiCam I work on ideas to create photo opportunities more challenging than a regular photo walk. The most successful of these has been the "Portrait Throw Down", an event where each participant was required to take a turn posing for portraits. It was an opportunity for everyone to learn more about portraiture from the perspective of both a subject and a photographer. The result - excellent photographs and great fun.

Although we maintain an online VanDigiCam forum on Flickr, the group is more about real world interaction. There are more than 250 members online with around forty to fifty people participating in at least one meeting. The number of regulars is smaller, but we've evolved into a tight community of friends. We're not exclusive about it though, and we're always happy when new people discover us and join in.

Each person who is actively involved in VanDigiCam has the potential to influence the group in a new way and contribute to our continued growth as a community. Would we be such a closely-knit group without the efforts of Gailontheweb, who over the summer of 2005 proposed a non-stop list of activities? If Christopher Evans had stayed away because he thought we only shot digitally, would we now be experimenting so much with different trash cameras? And I'm glad that someone as young as Sam.d, dramatically different in age than most of us, feels comfortable enough to come out.

The success we've had at maintaining VanDigiCam constantly amazes those of us who've been a part of it since the beginning. It has brought me into close connection with many people that I would not have otherwise met, and given me a sense of community that was sadly lacking. I also feel through the influence of this group, we've not only all become much better photographers, but also better people.