With sophomore Irena Cich leading this new group, Photo Club is added to the long lists of extracurriculars BSM offers. Cich came to the first meeting bringing lots of different ideas. Unlike a normal photo club that just uses the time to share pictures and rank the photos, she wants to use the club for more than just photography. By getting photography-loving students further involved in the community, Cich plans to encourage students to spend their time volunteering while doing what they love.

With the odd combination of photo and volunteering, Cich seems to have a good grip on what would work. “I was hoping to use the club for volunteering at an organization like Feed My Starving Children,” said Cich. “During the volunteering we can take a collection of photos and then post them. It would be a great way of showing what BSM does to help out,” said Cich.

“I was not able to join photo this semester so I wanted to do something related to it,” said Cich. This club was the answer. The members are still working out the kinks in this new club, but they have a lot of ideas. The concrete fact, though, is it meets every other Tuesday for an hour and snacks will be provided.

The club wants to use this time to share photos with each other, either digital or manual, said Cich. The adviser, Ms. Sue Jacobson, wants to make clear to participants that this time is not used for teaching photo basics like how to use the darkroom or PhotoShop. This time should be used to work on and improve the members’ skills.

“We want to have a theme for about a week and then share our pictures,” said Cich. This way there will be something to base the pictures around and give people somewhere to start. The theme is not there to limit the photographers to just that theme, they should be able to expand and express themselves too.

I was thinking of maybe starting a photo board with collections of students pictures and a picture of the week, said Cich. This way the photo club students can show off their work to the rest of the school. “Then we can have discussions about [the photos],” said Cich.

Cich has a lot ahead of her still, but she seems to be pretty happy on how the club is turning out. “I expected only like five to show up, but more came,” said Cich. 30 students showed up to the first meeting and Cich is hoping for nothing but more growth.