The beauty of the Columbia Valley is constantly being captured by photographers from the East Kootenay region and visitors alike.
Golden-based photographer Joseph Carter and Windermere-based photographer Morgan Odland recently created the Columbia Valley Photography Club on Facebook to share photography tips and tricks, while creating opportunities for photographers to unite regularly on outings, themes or contests.
“I’ve lived in the valley for 10 years and I’ve always been keen on photography,” said Joe. “I had been meaning to start up a club for a while now, and actually had made up a logo for one a year ago, but I never got around to doing it.”
But when Joe spotted a request for photography lessons on the Invermere Free Classifieds page on Facebook, he responded by expressing an interest in bringing people together promptly.
“I mentioned that it would be great to start a club and enough people replied saying they would love to do it, so I did it,” said Joe. “I did it within five minutes with Morgan. We just met over that message board and she sent me a private message offering to help me, which was good because I actually needed it.”
Joe had been contemplating how to bring shutterbugs together to talk about their craft while taking adventures for roughly a year, but credits Morgan for making the Columbia Valley Photography page accessible to the public.
“I initially set-up the page the wrong way, so she actually walked me through how to make it a public page for a group instead of a fan page,” he said with a chuckle. “Personally, I wanted to start the club to get together with other photographers because as adventurous as people are in the valley, sometimes it’s hard to get them to come out and shoot the stars in the middle of the night if they’re not keen on photography — or go hike to the top of a mountain just for a view, but that’s more why I wanted to start the club. I want to actually get together with like-minded individuals and share our passion.”
Joe added there is no limit to photography opportunities.
“I consider all the way down to Fairmont and all the way over to Canmore, my backyard in a sense,” he said. “Nowhere is close in the valley, so I kind of consider Invermere my backyard even though it’s an hour and a half away so I’m often down there taking photos.”
However, he has noticed that many people are joining the Columbia Valley Photography Club from the Invermere community as a forum to discuss techniques and to share imagery.
“We’ll try to have as many get-togethers as we can and contests on the page, or weekly themes,” said Joe, who is working toward becoming a full-time photographer with a focus on weddings “I just wanted to use it because there are so many photographers in the valley and I thought it would be a great way for us to share the beauty… the more the merrier and I want to stress that the group is for anybody who appreciates photography. You don’t have to be a photographer, you don’t have to think you have any kind of technical ability or necessarily even take photos yourself — you just have to appreciate photography.”
To join the public group on Facebook, search for the Columbia Valley Photography Club.
For more information about Joe’s work, visit JosephCarter.ca or JoeWasHere.ca.