Looking for Friends to Shoot With?

Feb 27, 2012

By Chad Coppess

For some photography is a solitary activity, but many people enjoy sharing with and learning from others with similar interests. The explosion of interest in picture taking brought on by digital imaging has also created a great interest in furthering skills in photography. 

South Dakota has no shortage of photography clubs to join and workshops to attend. At the risk of missing a few, I’ll highlight some here. Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Huron are home to the most active clubs.

The Black Hills Photo Club is a growing organization with around 50 members. They meet on the second Tuesday of each month at the Outdoor Campus West in Rapid City. The club can be found at http://www.bhphotoclub.org/.

The Huron Area Photo Club meets the last Thursday of the month at the Extension Center on the State Fairgrounds. They can be found on www.Facebook.com by searching “Huron Photo Club.”

Sioux Falls Camera Club meets the first Tuesday of the month at the Oak View Library in Sioux Falls. They can be found at http://siouxfallscameraclub.com/.

All three clubs hold competitions, critique sessions and field trips. Members assist others in learning all the technical ins and outs of today’s photography. Guest speakers are also often featured at club meetings.

If intensive instruction over a few days is more to our liking for learning, workshops are offered throughout the summer and fall by a variety of instructors. Here’s a sampling for this year and links to find more information:

June 10-14 – Badlands Photo Safari with Jason Odell  

July 15-22 – The Sacred Landscape: Badlands and Black Hills with Douglas Beasley/Vision Quest 

July 6-13 – Indian Country, Black Hills and Badlands with David M. Cobb

Sept. 3-10 – Black Hills and Badlands with Rod Planck 

Spearfish-based Outdoor Photo Workshops is offering wildlife workshops this year and held a cowboy workshop in February. Two-day workshops shooting sharp tailed grouse with longtime area shooter Dick Kettlewell are offered March through May. Dick also teaches two-day workshops on shooting pronghorn antelope in June and July. Other instructors at Outdoor Photo Workshops include Les Voorhis of Spearfish and Steve Babbitt from Rapid City. 

Outdoor Photo Workshops also now coordinates the Black Hills Photo Shootout, a two-and-one half day weekend of workshops scheduled for September 28-30 this year. As one of the co-founders of the Shootout, I highly recommend it for someone who’s wondering if a group workshop is right for them. The first two years of the event have been lots of fun and brought together a wonderful group of talented people to photograph South Dakota.

Nationally-known photographer Rick Sammon will be the keynote speaker for this year’s Shootout. Headquarters for the weekend is the Black Hills State University campus in Spearfish. Registration will open in May and full details will be available at http://www.bhsu.edu/Default.aspx?alias=www.bhsu.edu/blackhillsphotoshootout and on Facebook.

South Dakota’s state parks also offer periodical photography workshops at locations throughout the state. Check the calendar of events at http://gfp.sd.gov/calendar.aspx for specific times and parks.

As I said, it’s very possible that I’ve missed some workshops or clubs in this list. If you know of more that should be shared, please leave a comment. Thanks and happy shooting!

 

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.