LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHY
San Marcos Photo Friends build community through cameras
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the photos produced during the San Marcos Photo Friends meet ups might just leave you speechless. The group consists of local photographers that peruse the town and eloquently capture the local scene shot by shot.
Meggie Emerick of Lago Vista Film Lab made her dream of a lo- cal photo club a reality the day her coworker Madelyn Krueger was hired. In order to get to know each other more they took an impromptu photo walk around campus on Halloween day in search of students in costume. Joined by some local photographers they took to the quad, camera in hand.
“We ran around campus together. Sometimes we split up. Sometimes we stuck together. We’d go, ‘Oh, did you see Spider-Man? Did you see this person? Did you see that character?’ … It was just so much more fun than going out all by yourself to go look for things, just to do it socially.” Emerick said. “I wanted to get photographers together just to do photos together and just to have an excuse to be outside, to see things together, to go places.”
The success of the first impromptu photo walk encouraged Emerick and Krueger to make the club official and invite the public to participate. The next day Meggie made an instagram page for the club, @smphotofriends, and started to plan the first official meet up at the Veterans Day Parade.
“I was a little worried about that being the very first meetup because it was immediately after the election,” Emerick said. “I thought some people didn’t want to go out and be in something that could seem politically charged. But you know what, 12 or 13 people showed up. We met up in the lab so that we had a space where we could all just introduce ourselves, get to know each other, kind of show off what camera we’re using. And then when we went out into the square. The community was all there, and they were so happy. I feel like it really calmed everyone’s tension. I felt like it brought people together a little bit more, and it was so much fun.”
During the Veterans Day Parade, the club ran into a special guest who would be the star of their third meet up.
“We were walking around and there was a guy with a yak, like the bovine animal, and then we ran into people and they said, “Hey did you see the yak over by Papa John’s?” Emerick exclaimed.
After a few weeks the Photo Friends organized a photoshoot with Knuckles the yak and his owner Jared.
“There were 20 people that ended up coming to Rio Vista just to see Jared and Knuckles the yak. And it ended up just being a very San Marcos thing to happen. People were excited about it. It was fun. It was weird. It was different,” Emerick said.
The Photo Friends founders created a mission that includes anyone and everyone interested in photography and community. There are no limits to who can be a “Photo Friend.”
“You don’t even need to have a camera. You don’t need to shoot film. You don’t even need to shoot photography. It doesn’t have to be still photography. You can do video. If you want to draw, you can come and draw. I’m okay with that. Whatever. It’s just a group that wants to get out together and observe and capture things,” Emerick said.
Krueger said the photo- taking aspect of the meet up isn’t even her favorite part.
“The community and talking to everyone truly comes first,” Krueger said. “I felt exactly like a camp counselor in the way of shepherding everyone and trying to talk to everyone, so that they felt welcome and like they weren’t alone,” Krueger said after leading her first photo walk.
San Marcos Photo Friends plans to host meet ups biweekly. One can keep up to date with their photo walks and meeting recaps on instagram @smphotofriends and follow the adventures of Jared and Knuckles the yak on instagram at @yeehawyaks.
