Our next meeting is on Thursday, July 16th, 7:00 pm, at First Lutheran Church!
Come early to visit and share with your fellow photographers.
Agenda
- 6:30 Set up and social time.
- 7:00 Welcome and Member News
- 7:10 Quote of the Month
- 7:15 Announcements
- 7:30 Program: “The Souls of Sixth Street” by Camille Wheeler
- 8:15 – Member Photo Share
Program: “The Souls of Sixth Street” by Camille Wheeler
“The Souls of Sixth Street is a documentary project examining the wildly divergent intersections that create a one-of-a-kind community on Austin’s most storied thoroughfare. More than a decade ago, in February 2016, I began photographing the unhoused population of Sixth Street and downtown Austin. As I formed closer connections with people living on the street, I came to understand that I was documenting layers of community, poverty, estrangement, and addiction in relation to the everyday workings of East Sixth, a National Register historic district.
The street features the mundane and the intoxicating: The trucks making deliveries to businesses. The musicians lugging their gear into bars. The door guys enticing customers to come inside for live music and drinks. The party and comedy club crowds packing the sidewalks.
On this unpredictable landscape, I continue to shape my view of Sixth through the relationships I have built with those experiencing chronic homelessness. I have lost friends to heat stroke, cancer, gunshot wounds, and drug overdoses. On the street, I carry cigarettes, cash, and Narcan. Off the street, I spend time in hospitals and at nursing homes with folks I know, sometimes serving as an emergency contact for individuals who have lost touch with their families.
Over the past few years, I have made it my mission to photograph the before and after on Sixth, a place facing certain and drastic change because of major redevelopment that is well under way.
My project is deeply personal. I routinely meet new people. And I regularly return to individuals I know, photographing them time and again and documenting the changes of life and the markers of stress and aging that I know my friends must also surely see in me.“
Camille Wheeler is a veteran journalist with a diverse background in newspaper and magazine writing, reporting, and editing. Her career includes a lengthy stay at the Austin American-Statesman and a subsequent tenure at Texas Co-op Power magazine as staff writer and associate editor.
Wheeler began a serious pursuit of photojournalism in 2014. Two years later, she launched her current project: the documentation of the unhoused community in downtown Austin and on historic East Sixth Street. There, Wheeler has become an advocate for those experiencing homelessness as she documents the juxtaposition of community and poverty. Her work may be found on Instagram, @camillewheels, and on her website at www.camillejwheeler.com.
Member Photo Share Theme: Plants
Plants are everywhere around us in our yards, parks, open spaces, and countrysides. They may frame, compliment, or partly obscure the subject of our photographs. Quite commonly they are the subject; beautiful flowers, interesting shapes, complex foliage, or textures and patterns draw our attention. They can present challenging subjects for photographers, stretching one’s technical abilities with the camera and skills in post-processing. Photos may range from macros to landscapes, the subjects from redwoods to moss. For PhotoShare in July choose from your files up to three images that feature plants as the subject of the picture. Please Send your Photoshare images to Jerry Sargent at photos@jerrysargent.com
Dues
Annual dues are a bargain at $12 per year. If you haven’t renewed, you may pay at the meeting, or use our PayPal by using this link, or you can mail your check to Winifred Simon at 600 Red Hawk Road, Wimberley, TX 78676. (Only paid members may post on our HCPC Members Facebook page. If you are a paid member and cannot access the account, ask Charlie Kreitler, our admin, to allow you access.
Social Media
We have two Facebook Pages — Public and Members Only.
If you have any news or stories you’d like to have included in the newsletter, please send them to hcphotoclub@gmail.com.