Club History

On June 16, 1932, the late J. Haden Hankins and William Edwin Booth started the
Amateur Photographers Club (APC) with George B. Fleming as the first president
and Leslie Stansbury as secretary. Anyone having an interest in photography was
eligible to join.

Earlier, Stansbury had introduced Hankins, a printer and microscopist, and Booth, an
artist who was star-gazing through a 26 inch focal length telescope with a 2-inch lens.
They decided to combine their interests and started to study books on photography,
which had been borrowed from the Richmond Public Library, in order to learn how to
photograph the intricate designs produced in the skeletons of diatoms (microscopic
plants found in ditch water).

At first, meetings were held in the homes of the members on alternate Wednesday
evenings. Once a month a professional photographer was selected to judge print
competitions. In April 1933, it was decided to add the services of an artist in order to
balance the principles of pictorial photography with those of painting.

In January 1934, Dr. E.H. Ingersoll was elected vice-president, the first one to serve in
that capacity. In May, William S. Simpson took over as press agent from Booth and in
June the Club began to meet in the YMCA building at 7th and East Grace Streets. We left
there in July to meet in the new Richmond Academy of Arts, 1006 East Capitol Street,
where a completely equipped studio for the use by our members was opened in
December 1934.

On October 3, 1935, Thomas C. Colt, director of the new Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
offered the club a meeting place. This offer was accepted and the Club was incorporated
that year with a membership that topped 100!

In 1936 the Virginia Museum wished to start a permanent collection of photographic
works and requested that three medal prints from the Virginia Photographic Salon be
donated. This was done, and with the addition of two more, the collection was five
exhibition prints, one by S. Wary Selden, one by C. C. Cowen and three by W. Edwin
Booth.

The Club had meeting rooms and a studio at John Slavin’s, 118 North Third Street in
October 1936, and that year in the month of December adopted a new constitution.
35mm Kodachrome film was introduced that year, and soon thereafter a color slide
division was added to the competition. In July, Thomas C. Yeaman, assistant print
director, took over the job of assembling a Traveling Club Print Exhibit. The CCR became
an affiliate of the Photographic Society of America (PSA) in 1937. This year was marked
by another move to a new studio at 14 South Seventh Street, where a darkroom was
added in October.

Under the direction of J.W.Lemay, the first CCR Photo School, with the Club paying a
portion of the tuition, was started October 18, 1938.

In the years that followed, the Club established meeting places in such locations as the
Board Room of the Bank of Virginia, 8th and East Main Streets, the Esso Building on
West Broad Street, the AAA building on West Broad St, the C&P Telephone building on
Nansemond Street, the Seaboard Coastline building on West Broad Street, the Fidelity
Building, 9th and East Main Streets, and the Bank of Virginia Building, Vault Level
Auditorium, 7 North Eight Street. In August of 2002, the CCR moved to the Bon Air
Library at Rattlesnake Road off Buford Road. The Club met there until January 2005,
when the meeting location was changed to the Science Museum of Virginia, 2500 W.
Broad Street; it’s present location.

After more than 75 years of service to our community, the Club’s original aims continue
to be dedicated to the furtherance of photographic knowledge and to the thesis that
photography is indeed a fine art. The divisions of color slides, monochrome prints, color
prints, and digital works carry on to enhance the joy of photography and to embrace the
changes in the photographic world.


By Carole Hagaman - Updated June 2005