about us

The Swansea Camera Club of today is the centre of activity for amateur photographers throughout Swansea and the surrounding area. We cater for photographers of all levels and skill, from beginners to advanced, and in all branches of photography - natural history, landscape, social documentary, portraiture and travel and of course the use of a variety of techniques, including digital imaging.

The membership fee is; £30.00 per year. However, you are more than welcome to visit the club on a trial basis of one month. If you think the Club is for you, we ask you to join as a full member. If not, simply walk away. Membership entitles you to take part in all club competitions, the Annual Exhibition, together with all inter-club and Welsh Photographic Federation (WPF) competitions and exhibitions.(Additional fees may be payable when entering most external competitions, other than Club sponsored events)

The fact that Swansea is a popular camera club, should come as no surprise to devotees of the art, as several eminent 19th Century, Swansea citizens played a major role in popularising photography in the mid 1800s when photography, as it became known, was in its infancy.

William Henry Fox Talbot and two of his relatives, John Dillwyn Llewellyn and the Reverend Richard Calvert Jones (Two founder members) were instrumental in advancing the science. Their work laid the foundation of present day, chemical based, photographic processing. With this in mind, research notes a report which appeared in a local newspaper The Cambrian on the 3rd February 1861. It reported the formation of a photographic society for Swansea and the surrounding area - the objective being the advancement of the art and science of photography, by the reading of lectures, discussions, exhibitions of photography etc The Cambrian felt it would be a useful means of scientific research. This research establishes beyond doubt, some form of Club was formed.