Local camera clubs launch Abbeyleix exhibition
Members of the Noreside Camera club Abbeyleix and Mountrath and District Camera club
Two Laois camera clubs have joined together to reveal their second joint photographic exhibition in two years at Abbeyleix library, which was launched on Thursday 4 June by the heritage town's tidy towns chairperson Robbie Quinn.
The varied lens exhibition is by the combined 13 members of the Noreside Camera club Abbeyleix and Mountrath and District Camera club. The display features a wide variety of different styles of photographic interests and includes landscapes, macro, sports, nature, portrait, travel and street photography in a showing not to be missed.
The two clubs came together for an eye-catching exhibition at the same venue in July 2024, featured in this newspaper at the time, and this exhibition of exposures by the enthusiastic collective promises to be well worth viewing.
The photographers displaying some of their favourite and most recent shots in the exhibition are Gerry Dunbar (chairperson), Eddie Phelan, Mary O’Dea (secretary), Heather Rice, Lorraine Strang (treasurer), Mai Murphy, Sinead Hennessey-Bergin, Rosie Gee, Pascal Walsh, Tim Conroy, Lisa Doyle, Miriam Brickley and Melissa Casey.
The group likes to focus their photography locally. However, they are no strangers to trips away and are looking forward to a two-day trip to Achill Island in September and visited Fota Wildlife Park last year.
Each photographer has their own focus points and views things in their own way and places like Garryhinch woods, along with a variety of other scenic places around the county, are the club’s favourite places to visit. They meet in the clubhouse at Bloom HQ on the first and third Tuesday of every month and usually head out as a group to apply their craft and to capture remarkable shots.
Chairman of the club Gerry Dunbar said that they are delighted that they have recently got their own printer and are looking forward to expanding into a new area of printing.
He said: “It has become quite difficult to get stuff printed nowadays, so we decided to get our own A2 printer so that we can print our own photographs. We are also hopeful of obtaining funding, which we have applied for, to help to do up our new headquarters so that we can get more equipment and add a darkroom to what is now an old kitchen.
‘‘We also have good storage space here which we are looking forward to utilising. When the printer is properly set up, other camera clubs will be able to come to us for their printing services.” Continuing, Gerry said: “Another idea that the club is trying to get off the ground is that because people in the area have old photographs and negatives, they could bring them in and we would be able to digitise them. We would like to work with local heritage groups because once these people pass away, those old photographs and negatives can get dumped and just fade away, whereas we would be able to store them.” The club is also part of the Midlands Photographic Group which is a group of seven photography clubs in the midlands that get together to do various things throughout the year, including holding a friendly competition each November.
New members are always welcome to join the clubs. More information is available on the club’s Facebook pages Noreside Camera club Abbeyleix and Mountrath and District Camera club.
