By Kiki Johanson

sfcc.kristina.johanson@gmail.com

There are about 1,120 photographers in Washington as of 2014. SFCC is home to many of them.

At SFCC, the Photo Arts Club is here to: “encourage students interested in photography, and … promoting photography shows and workshops designed to enlighten and educate the students of SFCC.” According to the club’s website.

“It’s a campus IRP program, so we integrate instruction related things in with it;” Erik Sohner said, the instructor of the Photo Arts Club. “It’s to enrich our photographic community and integrate it into the general community.”

There are no prerequisites for joining except for the obvious need to be enrolled as a student at SFCC.

“Actively we have 9 student leaders in the club,” Sohner said. “But at the meetings we have between 35-45 people.”

The photo arts club meets every other friday in the auditorium of building 24 in the afternoon.

“The contests we host are to showcase our work in the community,” Sohner said. “Some are inter club contests and some are outside competitions that tie into first friday gallery showcases.”

Sohner hopes that the photo arts club allows students to achieve more enrichment in their photographic skills by allowing them more creative opportunity.

“We get somewhere around $4500 a year, and then we fundraise beyond that,” Sohner said.

Those funds go towards hosting high-end photography events in which second year students get to shoot, and first year students assist them.

Even though you don’t get credit for being in the club, sometimes class time is used for club work, so it allows students to further refine their photography skills.