INTRODUCTION
The Camera Club of the Philippines is an association with almost a hundred listed members, about sixty to seventy of whom are at this time fairly active in regularly attending meetings and participating in club activities.
The members come from varying backgrounds, ages, levels and walks of life. . . businessmen, professionals, executives, employees . . . young, middle-aged, retired. Two bonds keep them together. Friendship which the club has been developing as an objective for the last 75 years. And a love for photography, the enjoyment and promotion of which is another of the club’s basic objectives.
PRESENT DAY ACTIVITIES OF THE CLUBToday, the club meets regularly every first Monday of the month in the evening at the Manila Golf and Country Club. At these regular monthly meetings, the members socialize and hold photo competitions on themes and media according to a pre-announced annual program. The contest and fellowship are the main features of these meetings. Occasionally, however, the meetings might also include a model who poses for portraits by the members, or a speaker who lectures or makes presentations on some topic of interest.
In addition, regularly during any year, the club holds “on-the spot” competitions in which the members gather in some specified or defined area, as near as the Quezon Memorial Circle or Corregidor or as far as the Batanes Islands or Sicogon and Boracay, for a fixed limited time in hours or days and they interact and take photographs to their hearts’ content under common conditions (sometimes in rain and storm), and in some later meeting, if they wish to do so, submit entries to compete with one another. The “on-the-spot” competition could also be an event like the Centennial Parade (June 12, 1998), or the annual Pahiyas fiesta at Lukban. It might require a specialized theme like “abstractions” or “the color red” in the Makati Commercial Center.
In August, the club usually celebrates its anniversary on or near August 19. In less economically trying times, the club has held costumed affairs as lavish as the first anniversary celebrated by the club’s founders in the Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel in 1929.
A publication that has become traditional since 1976 is the handsome annual calendar featuring some of the year’s black-and-white work of the club.
The Camera Club of the Philippines is basically a club of hobbyists (a few are professional photographers) and friends enjoying one another’s company and their common interest. Often though, its members feel the need to “reach out” to a wider public or to society and its many needs.
Today, exhibits, publications, occasional lectures and workshops on photography are among the activities undertaken by the club. In 1983 and 1988, the club mounted a major Vintage and Classic Camera Exhibit. In 1985, the club contributed to a traveling photo exhibit intended to “sell” the Philippines in the United States. In 1988, photo exhibits took a new level of significance in a joint effort with the Metropolitan Museum of Manila when a selection of the club’s photographs was organized to teach the principles of aesthetics and composition. This exhibit, entitled “Filipinas Nating Napakaganda,” was transported all over the Philippines and shown to thousands of school youth.
Other similar efforts with didactic overtones have since been mounted, now to exhibit the different faces of the Filipino, now to promote environmentalism.
In 1987, the club undertook a major educational effort in its two-day workshop entitled “Photo Lessons from the Masters” held at the Asian Institute of Management.
In 1997, the club contributed photographs for a calendar that raised funds for a foundation helping children with cancer.
Every year, the officers of the club exert some effort and thought to “reach out” and make some small contribution to society beyond the enjoyment the members find in the camaraderie and regular activities of the club. In its 75th year in 2003, the club arranged to donate more than a hundred books on photography to the Filipinas Heritage Library in Makati City and to mount a major three-month long photo exhibit in the National Museum of the Filipino People, the first ever in that museum. The Philippines Yearbook 2004, published by the Fookien Times organization, was devoted entirely to the Camera Club of the Philippines. Not long after, the club itself published a coffee table book if some of its photographs. In 2007, the club is scheduled to hold a major photo exhibit in the Ayala Museum in Makati.
There are today many similar societies in the Philippines. The Camera Club of the Philippines is unique in that it is the oldest continuing photographic society in the country. It was first founded in 1928, and has continued for 78 years in an unbroken organized existence until today, except for some five years in 1942-46 during World War II.
LINKS TO THE PAST
Those present members who were active in the club in the 1970’s and 1980’s still remember interacting personally at the regular monthly meetings and other activities of the club with three elderly persons who were direct links to the club’s beginnings: Don Miguel J. Heras and his wife Doña Flora Ongpin Heras, and Dr. Alejandro R. Legarda.
Don Miguel, or Migueling as Doña Flora called him, was one of the eight original founders of the club in 1928. He was a lawyer and businessman, born on July 27, 1899, in Quiapo, Manila. He obtained his law degree in 1925 from the Philippine Law School at the head of his class and was a topnotcher at the Bar examinations that year. In 1928, he was an executive of his family’s shipping firm Genato & Co. He was for many decades one of the most active and enthusiastic members of the club, serving as its second Secretary in 1929, and as its third President in 1929 and 1930. In those days, the club had only two officers, a President and a Secretary. He remained a mainstay of the club thereafter being practically the only member with perfect attendance at club functions year after year. As the years passed and the older members faded away he continued to come to club functions until the late 1970’s and provided a major link with the club’s beginnings. Quite aptly, the only surviving contemporary write-ups we have today of the club’s early history were written by him. He died on May 1, 1982. His wife Doña Flora, who, as we shall see, was also active in club activities, continued to attend club functions until she too passed away in 19‑‑.
Dr. Alejandro Legarda missed being a founder because he was abroad in 1928. But the next year in 1929, he joined the club. Born in 1902 into the well-known and propertied Tuason-Legarda clan, he went on to become one of Manila’s leading Obstetrician-Gynecologists. He became the club’s Secretary in 1938, and President in 1939, and was Secretary again in 1941 when world war hit the Philippines. When club officers were again elected in 1947, he was the first postwar President. Dr. Legarda, or Mandu as he was called by his friends, was still attending club functions and hobnobbing at age 90 with members who were young enough to be his grandchildren; he died in 1993.
It was Don Miguel Heras who has left us with his “The Story of the Camera Club of the Philippines,” which was first issued on August 19, 1953, to celebrate the club’s silver or 25th anniversary. I have seen four editions of this article, all written or updated by Don Miguel. The second came out five years after the first, on the club’s 30th anniversary in 1958.
The third edition was issued a year later on August 19, 1939, in what the club members came to know as their “blue book.” It was in pocket sized format of five-by-seven inches. It contained not only the story of the club, but also a compilation of data regarding the organization, its constitution, rules governing contests, list of officers of past years, club awards and honors, directory of members, and the text of the Member’s Pledge. The booklet, printed under the presidency of Antonio S. Gabriel, also contained three photographs.
The fourth edition appeared on the club’s 35th anniversary in 1963 in another beautifully printed booklet in six-by-eight inches format with a yellow cover bound with plastic ring binders. The booklet contained basically the same but updated contents as the “blue book,” with a few more pictures of club activities.
We shall follow here more or less the same outline and headings used by Don Miguel Heras in his account.
THE BEGINNINGSDon Miguel wrote that it was on a Sunday morning in 1928 that he met with seven other gentlemen to discuss the formation of a photography club. They were Manuel R. de Cartagena (a photodealer), Vicente Mills (a government official then in the Bureau of Lands), Luis Guzman (a professional photographer), Jose M. Ocampo (a broker), Bonifacio S. Araullo (a bank executive), Federico Montes (a lithographer or printer), and Juan Mencarini (a linguist).
As can be seen, these gentlemen were engaged in varying occupations. The one thing they had in common was photography. They met on the invitation of the photodealer de Cartagena These eight constituted themselves into an organizing committee and elected the eldest among them, Juan Mencarini, as president, and Bonifacio S. Araullo as secretary. They invited other photography enthusiasts. A constitution was drawn up and a name adopted, “Camera Club of the Philippines.”
A date was set for the formal inauguration of the club and this took place officially on August 19, 1928, in the office of one of the founders, the broker Jose M. Ocampo, in the Paterno Building beside the then Santa Cruz (now MacArthur) Bridge just off Plaza Goiti in Manila.
It is interesting to note that some close linkages with these beginnings are still left in the club. One of the club’s present members, Vicente “Bimbo” T. Mills, who joined the club in its 50th year 1978, is the son of one of the eight original founders. He was even delivered at birth by Dr. Alejandro Legarda who had joined the club in 1929. The building where, according to Don Miguel, the club was born, used to be owned by the family of a present member, Roberto M. Paterno, until it was sold not too long ago to FEATI University.
CLUB QUARTERS AND DARKROOMS
The club today maintains a small office in a condominium building in Makati City. During its first six years from September 1928 until 1934, the club maintained its own quarters and no less than two well-equipped darkrooms with running water and all the facilities for developing, copying and enlarging. These were on the second floor of the Arguelles Building on Rizal Avenue.
Don Miguel recounted that the club members met almost every afternoon for photo talk and to plan activities, and yet practically no one used the darkrooms. In August 1933, the club quarters were transferred to the Argellies Building on Dasmariñas Street. No darkrooms were installed there, but portrait sittings continued intermittently. Finally in 1934, the club decided to give up its quarters mainly due to an apparent lack of interest on the part of its members and leaders. For many years thereafter, club members contented themselves to meet regularly at monthly dinners where all club activities were discussed and decided. This has continued to the present. It was only fairly recently in the late seventies that the club again also set up an office secretariat, in spaces borrowed from members, until 1994 when it finally acquired its condominium office. But in today’s fast-paced life with traffic and parking problems, the office has not become the clubhouse that some members used to dream about.
PHOTO EXCURSIONSToday’s “on-the-spot” (OTS) competitions are descended from what Don Miguel calls “picnics.” These were photographic excursions which the club held from its earliest days but which apparently did not stress the aspect of competition as do the present “on-the-spots.” Indeed, Bimbo Mills remembers carrying equipment for his father on an excursion to Forest Hills, and he describes his father eating, drinking and talking photography with his fellow members and not really doing much shooting. During its early years, a photo picnic was actually held at least once a month, usually outside Manila. Practically all towns within easy reach by car were invaded by club members during weekends and holidays – Pagsangjan, Marilao, Lipa, Taal, Batangas, Obando, Antipolo, Cavite, Malolos, Pasay, Parañaque, and many smaller towns and barrios. Some were two-day affairs which necessitated carrying pretty heavy baggage before the era of miniaturization. The smallest cameras used by members in those days used the 120 sized film (2 ¼” by 3 ¼”). Aside from the club outings, smaller groups of members sometimes went on their own photo expeditions, as they still do today.
It appears that one of the most memorable of these outings was a foray to Tagaytay during the club’s very first year. Let us hear it in Don Miguel’s own words:
“The most memorable Club picnic was to Tagaytay held one Sunday in the latter part of 1928. To go to Tagaytay then was not the easy forty-minute ride that it is today. To reach Tagaytay you had to go to Tanza by bus or car and from Tanza to Tagaytay proper you had to walk or ride small ponies for another three hours through tortuous trails. The picnic was organized by the Club but many others joined including personnel from Kodak Philippines [which by the way was established in the Philippines also in 1928 – RMP], Botica Boie, Botica de Santa Cruz and other commercial firms. In all over a hundred persons made up the party. It left early on that Sunday morning starting from Plaza Goiti in four busses and many cars. We arrived in Tanza around nine o’clock and after making arrangements for mounts for those who did not want to walk started half an hour later on the trails leading to Tagaytay. Many fell from their ponies, some got lost on the way, but our destination was finally reached around half past twelve. Unfortunately there was fog over Taal Lake so that the magnificent view which was the purpose of making the long trip was not visible. Still since we were there cameras and tripods were taken from their cases and picture taking started. The sky continued overcast and soon a drizzle began to fall.
“As far as known nobody was able to take a good picture. Since the weather continued bad it was decided to start back at half past one. The same mishaps in going happened on the return trip. Riders were again thrown from their mounts, others got lost again, but finally everybody was accounted for and the trek back to Manila started. The party arrived back on Plaza Goiti at around five o’clock where the picnickers dispersed.
“Everybody was dogtired, nobody had taken any decent pictures, still, all in all, it was considered a very successful picnic for the many incidents that befell all who participated because it gave us something to talk about for many months after the picnic.”
SOCIAL ACTIVITIESThe club today admits men and women as members, but it so happens there are today only two lady-members. But for most of its history until the later 1970’s, the club was a strictly stag society. Social activities with ladies, however, became important indirectly through portraiture which was a major activity from the very beginning.
One of the founding members was Luis Guzman, a professional photographer who had just closed his Filipinas Studio. He patiently taught his fellow members to produce portraits whose quality rose above the snapshots they had been taking. Some began to produce work at a par with professionals. In the club’s quarters was a well-equipped gallery where many prominent “society girls” of the thirties sat for portraits.
It was in connection with this activity that Miss Flora Ongpin was elected the only honorary member of the club. In the beginning, recalled Don Miguel, it was rather difficult to invite young ladies for the club’s Sunday sessions of portraiture. Miss Ongpin was the first model, and she turned out to be very helpful in convincing her friends and others to come to the gallery for a sitting.
Among these ladies were the famous Magalona beauties, Susan and Betty, Pacita Zabarte (mother-in-law of an eighties member Joe Matute), Carmen Manahan (sister of Dr. Antonio Manahan and sister-in-law of Freddie von Kauffman, members in the seventies), Alicia de Santos (sister-in-law of current member Niding Maloles), Elenita Hernandez, Concepcion Soriano, and others.
Later in 1937, Miss Ongpin married Don Miguel and continued her involvement in the club even when she became a widow. She was considered a Lifetime Member of the club until her death in 19--.
As Don Miguel put it:
“The ladies who came for sittings never regretted it. As a reward for their tiring experience, they were given the best of the photographs made of them. It was not unusual for each sitter to receive from all members who had taken her picture, two, three or even four dozen very good portraits ranging in size from 8 x 10 to 11 x 14 inches.
“These young ladies in return used to invite the members of the Club to their social gatherings and thus it came about that without deliberately planning it the social side of the Club became a very important activity.”
Don Miguel also recalled a number of other social affairs particularly a cocktail party given by the club for Prince Purachatra, brother of King Pradhipadok of Siam, a dinner to honor Nicholas Haz, a well-known American photographer of the thirties, and a visit to Malacañang Palace where members took photographs and movies of Misses Cynthia and Alice Davis, daughters of the then American Governor General of the Philippine Islands Dwight Davis.
Today, the club’s most prominent social affair is the anniversary dinner held on or near August 19th. The first anniversary dinner was held in the storied Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel in 1929. It was a lavish affair. Aside from the members’ wives, the ladies present who had sat for portraits were given as a souvenir for their attendance an 11” by 14” hand-colored portrait in an expensive mount and a vest pocket (size 127) camera covered with silk.
In the years that followed, these dinners were held in different places; some were formal, some informal. This became the one traditional social event which was definitely not stag; married members brought their wives, while bachelors brought their lady friends and relatives. After the Japanese occupation, dinners were held in such places as the BayView Hotel, the Manila Hotel, the Avenue Hotel, where the club celebrated its Silver Anniversary in 1953, the Manila Polo Club and other places. The Golden Anniversary in 1978 was back in the Fiesta Pavilion of Manila Hotel; it was a costume party which tried to bring back the flavor of the 1920’s when the club was born. More recently, in the less difficult years, the annual affair has been held in the major hotels of Makati, some in fancy and fanciful costumes, with hilarious skits and musical presentations, emphasizing participation by families including children and grandchildren.
CLUB HONORS AND AWARDS
From the founding of the club, members talked of awarding prizes for the various competitions they held. But as Don Miguel wryly commented, there were so many and conflicting ideas that it was not until 1936 that the club finally adopted a set of rules to govern its annual competition at which the best photographer of the year was awarded the club’s highest honor in the form of a Plaque. Performance was gauged by how the member fared in the various monthly competitions during the year, measured by total scores accumulated by his entries. The first Plaque winner was Jesus Litonjua in 1936.
Fourteen years later, in 1950, on the suggestion of Dr. Legarda, another award was added to the Plaque. This was the Medal for the Best Picture of the Year. This was selected through a series of eliminations during the monthly contests at which the members themselves scored all entries on a scale of 1 to 5 with only those averaging a score of 3 or higher “qualifying “ for the final annual judging, a system still in use today. It is interesting to note, considering the club’s present practice, that for most of its history, the club contests were judged by the members themselves. Thus, in 1953 at the club’s silver anniversary, it was considered a departure from tradition when the Medal-winning picture was selected by an invited panel of judges who were officers of several other photographic organizations, both professional and amateur. The first Medal winner was Dr. Gregorio B. Sison in 1950.
In 1954, the club also created a third award upon the petition of many color enthusiasts. This was the Color Transparency Award, a 5” by 7” laminated certificate for the photograph chosen in a process similar to the Medal. The first winner was Dr. Felix B. Perlas
These then were the three traditional awards from 1936 until the seventies, the Plaque for the top photographer of the year, the Medal for the best picture (black-and-white print) of the year, and the Transparency Award for the best color transparency of the year. As color photography developed, color prints also began to constitute a separate division.
1976 marked a major development in the history of club awards. In the year previous, 1975, there had been awards for Best Picture of the Year in the three divisions of black-and-white print, color slide, and color print. There was no award for Photographer of the Year.
In 1976, through a member Luis Garcia who was then President of Wrigley Philippines, Inc., the Wrigley Cups started. These consisted of three large handsome silver trophies for the first three places in the annual top photographer of the year race. The top winner was conferred the grandiose title which is now the club’s most coveted of many awards, that of “Master Photographer of the Year.” It was a direct descendant of the historical Plaque Award given to the photographer accumulating the highest number of qualifying points in the various contests throughout the year.
The Wrigley Cups were awarded for eight years from 1976 to 1983. Then, through the efforts of member Jaime Zobel de Ayala, the subsequent trophies were sponsored by Filipinas Shell (the Shell Cup, 1984) and Ayala Corporation (the Ayala Cups, 1885-1994). Since 1995, the trophies have been sponsored by Kodak Philippines (the Kodak Cup, 1995 to 2005).
During its first year when the club maintained its own quarters, there were always pictures hanging on the walls which were changed at least once a month or oftener.
In 1932, in one of the annual fairs held in the Centro Escolar de Señoritas, the club took a booth and exhibited over forty pictures. According to Don Miguel, the exhibit “created a sensation,” because of the size of the photographs which ranged from 11” by 14” to 20” by 24,” and because more than half of the exhibit consisted of professional-caliber portraits of well-known society girls of that time.
Some individual members also exhibited in foreign salons of Europe and America, among them Messrs. Vicente Mills, Federico Montes, Bonifacio S. Araullo and Miguel J. Heras. Mills was even a finalist in the Kodak International contest held in the thirties. Individual club members have continued this tradition. More recently, Jaime Zobel has held exhibits abroad. In 2002, Emil Davocol, Raul Montifar, Waldy Cruz, and Bien Bautista mounted exhibits in New York City and in Hong Kong.
It appears that in its postwar years until the seventies, the club as such did not hold public exhibitions very often. One of the rare times that it did was in connection with the national photo contest held by the Filipino Photographic Dealers Association in 1950. While the club did not participate in the contest, it assigned space for al members to exhibit one picture each.
In 1965, for the first time, the 37-year old 28-member club issued a printed Annual 1965 containing a selection of works by its members, some taken way back in the 1920’s.
In spite of such occasional forays at public exposure, it appears that the club for the most part kept to itself. It was never very large throughout the years, apparently hovering around 25 to 35 at any one time. The mid-seventies were a turning point. Some then relatively new members noticed that although the club was nearing its golden anniversary, it was still small and inward-looking. It was then that a real effort to modify directions seems to have been made.
In the words of Franco Patriarca at the end of 1976, the club seemed to be changing “from a strictly closed exclusive company of weekend pictorialists to a dedicated band of contemporary photographers – alive, growing, conscious and concerned about their relationships to photography – improved in skills, producing more quality photographs that appeal to a wider audience; works of sustained interest and even exploratory experimentations unheard of in amateur circles.”
While experimentation has in fact remained limited to only a few members, there is no doubt that the club as a whole became more public, more outgoing, more intense in its photography, more eager to share its work with a wider audience. These stirrings showed in 1975.
In August that year, the first issue of the Viewfinder, the club’s magazine, saw light of day, and a second issue came out in December, both especially through the exertions of a then new member Franco Patriarca. Twenty-four of the seventy qualifiers from a total of 224 black-and-white prints submitted in various contests during that year 1975 were printed in a Camera Club of the Philippines Calendar for 1976 for the first time in the club’s history. A folio of photographs in a calendar has been published every year since then. The club also ventured a public exhibit of its photographs at the Club Filipino.
It was also during this year under the presidency of Feliciano Ferrer that the idea of incorporating the club was conceived. New enthusiastic members were recruited, and the year ended with the club roster growing to 45 members.
A final indication of a new era was the fact that for the first time in may years once again, the final year-end competitions for the best photographs for the year, a non-member panel of judges was invited to do the selection from the year’s qualifiers: Redentor Romero, Alfredo Roces, Philip Monserrat, Francisco Mañosa and Dick Baldovino.
In 1976, these trends were strengthened and institutionalized. The Viewfinder became a quarterly, although in recent years because of the cost of full-color printing, the Viewfinder has evolved into a monthly newsletter. The calendar continued. The contests intensified, the awards multiplied into divisions by medium and other categories, and, as we have seen, the “Master Photographer of the Year” title started accompanied by the Wrigley Cups. The practice of inviting non-members as judges became permanent and evidenced the club’s desire to submit its work to the standards of others. The incorporation of the club was completed that year, and for the first time, a Board of Directors headed the club. Towards the end of the year in November, the club held an exhibit of its photographs at Rustan’s Cubao, one of Manila’s then busiest department stores, to reach as many people as possible.
The next February in 1977, the club conducted a Photography Symposium for Wonderbooks, a division of Mondragon Industries, distributors of Time-Life Books. The symposium was conducted by members Vicente C. Valenciano and Ernesto T. Echauz, assisted by a panel composed of Eufrosino Q. Camarillo, Emmanuel Arriola and Franco Patriarca. No less than 150 people attended. It was another milestone in the desire of the club to be more “relevant” to its art and to society.
The struggle and efforts continue today a quarter of a century later.
In the 1963 edition of his “The Story of the Camera Club of the Philippines,” Don Miguel Heras began his account as follows:
“It seems incredible. No, it is incredible. Today our organization is celebrating its THIRTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. What, you may ask, is so wonderful about such an anniversary. It is simply this, that no photographic organization in Manila has lasted more than five years. Photographic societies have been established by Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Americans, Spaniards and other foreigners. I repeat, none has survived the original officers who with great enthusiasm and work have given of their time, effort and finances the best that they had.
“The exception to the short life of groups here is our own CAMERA CLUB OF THE PHILIPPINES. From the very beginning, there was, there is, and I sincerely hope there will be in the future, such a spirit of friendship and togetherness, that has survived thirty-five years of progress, backwardness, good officers, rotten officers, indifferent officers, in fact, even a war (1941-45). I am not implying that any man who becomes a member of our organization automatically becomes an angel. Even in Eden a reptile was able to come in and cause trouble between the only two people of the world. Among our members in the past, and who knows if also in the future, there have been snobs, smart alecks, idiots, trouble makers, foot draggers, et cetera. Fortunately, none of this type of member lasts long in our group. One of the most compelling reasons for this is that in our Club no member whether he is rich or occupies a high position in business or in the government is given more importance than a member of more moderate circumstances.”
Indeed. And here the club still thrives after 79 years.