PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB BASED ON MAUI
Since 1936
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The Maui News – Sunday, February 4, 2001
Venerable club conducts activities for new and experienced photographers
By ALAN ISBELL For The Maui News
A club organized 65 years ago for amateur shutterbugs remains the oldest and best of its kind in the islands, and its old-timers are passing on techniques they have learned over the decades to new members who want to frame their own moments.
Maui Camera Club was organized in 1936 by Harold Yamaguchi, who was then working at the old Hollister's Drug Store in Kahului, one of a handful of places to buy a hobby camera on Maui in those days. With so many coming in to talk story about cameras, Yamaguchi was motivated to find out if people were interested enough to join a camera club. Around a dozen or so were interested, so Maui Camera Club was born. Within a few years its ranks had swollen to a peak of around 60 members. Some 45 are currently enrolled
That number has ebbed on some years since, but not enough for the club to have disappeared. In fact, other camera clubs have come and gone here since, leaving Maui Camera Club as the only club remaining for amateur photographers on the island. (Another club exists here for professional photographers.)
It is affiliated with Camera Club Council of Hawaii, with clubs participating from Oahu, as well as from the Big Island. The council, which was organized 54 years ago by Maui News photographer Urban Allen, hosts an annual convention and photographic competition for medals in various categories each Labor Day weekend. Maui Camera Club has dominated the competitions, last year sweeping all but one category.
Many of the old-timers with the club are old hands with a camera. Larry Ikeda was for many years publications editor for Alexander & Baldwin, and routinely photographed the county fair for many years for a number of local newspapers and magazines. He joined the club 42 years ago at the urging of his employer.
Hideo Takeuchi has managed the photo contest and exhibit at the county fairs for more than 30 years now. He has hung work by some of Maui's best photographers on the walls of the fair's Photo Salon.
Speaking of best photographers, one of those mentioned as the best the world has ever produced actually spoke at a Maui Camera Club meeting in the '70s. The legendary Ansel Adams came at the invitation of the late Roy Okada, proprietor of Roy's Photo Center in Kahului. The two had met before, and Adams was on Maui at the time for a commercial shoot.
Okada had been another of that core group from many years back, active until his death in 1999. His wife, Jean, continues to participate in the club.
Carolyn Pavloff and her husband, Leo, joined the group in the '90s, among those the old-timers wryly dub the "newcomers transplanted from the mainland." Most in this group are more interested in camera technique than socializing, sighs Ikeda, who remembers many an outing involving lots of barbecue, beer and good fun. The social aspect of the group has not vanished, however, and one suspects that talk about technique, creativity and technology has never been absent from Maui Camera Club meetings.
Some of the old-timers who still remain active with Maui Camera Club pose for a shot at the home Carolyn and Leo Pavloff. The couple has helped move the club forward through the new millineum. From left are, Leo Pavloff, Carolyn Pavloff, Jean Okada Hideo Takeuchi and Larry Ikeda. Photo credit: Alan Isbell.
Carolyn Pavloff, who has saved as president to both the Maui Camera Club and the Camera Club Council of Hawaii, has provided much or the spark behind event coordination in recent years. She and the others are actively recruiting new membership to help continue the club's vibrancy in this regard, though.
Annual events include the aforementioned CCCH convention and competition, and the Photo Salon at the county fair. In addition, an exhibit is hung annually January through March in the Mayor’s Office on the ninth floor of the county building in Wailuku. In April, another exhibit is to be hung at Kula San. The CCCH also sponsors a “mid-year” slide competition in April that features a designated theme. (The themes have been as challenging as they have been fun: one year, for instance, the theme was noses!) Awards in that completion are for clubs as a whole, rather than individuals, and involve a perpetual trophy. An annual dinner is also celebrated.
Critiquing sessions are set occasionally, where all who participate are encouraged to react to submitted images for suggestions and ideas. Group photo shoots are also undertaken two or three times a year, an activity several members characterize as “fun” The group shoot is a good way to photographers to act on other’s creative suggestions in the field, such as one that involved Wailuku's celebration of the Chinese New Year last week. Other shoots have involved access to places rarely shot by others. For instance, Takeuchi recalls a memorable shoot of waterfalls and ponds East Maui Irrigation Co. opened to a club outing.
The club’s annual dues of just $12 ($18 for a family) entitled members to attend the club’s monthly meeting, convened at 7 p.m. which often feature well-respected photographers and photo technicians as speakers. Recent speakers have addressed underwater photography as well as digital photography, and future speakers will be booked with the intent of keeping members current with new technology.