Camera Club Plans

An innovation has recently been made by the Harvard Camera club which will have considerable effect on its work next year. No photographic contest was arranged with Yale this spring, because the Yale men interested in the subject did not organize in time; but a camera club at New Haven is now assured, and hereafter annual contests with Harvard will be held, probably during the spring.

To meet the new conditions of such a contest, plans have been made by which all men who wish to enter the first contest, next year, may have the benefit of intelligent criticism on their work during the summer months. Not only the present members of the club, but any who are expecting to join it, will mail photographs taken in the vacation to the president of the club. The constant advice and help that he will thus be able to give should do much toward raising the quality of future exhibitions.

The same result is aimed at in the system of lectures proposed for next winter. In the past, too little attention has been paid to the artistic side of picture taking, perhaps owing to the difficulty of mastering the purely mechanical problems involved. Beginning next fall the Camera Club will provide one lecture each month, to be given in the Fogg Lecture Room by some one of prominence connected with the University or by Boston artists. The subjects dealt with at these lectures will be taken from the purely artistic side of photography, and it is hoped that a corresponding improvement in exhibition pictures will result. Some of the lectures will be open to members of the club only, but many will probably be open to the public. Between these talks on the artistic side of photography, there will be monthly addresses of a more informal nature on various scientific subjects of interest to photographers. These meetings will be held in Brooks House, and prominent men in different lines of scientific or mechanical work will be asked to speak. Several men have already consented to speak on the artistic phases of the work.