If you were looking for a photo club a couple of years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find one, or even the remnants of one. According to current Wesfoto co-President Lirra Schiebler ’07, the photography club had essentially died until Schiebler and co-President Simone Collins ’07 re-started the club in the fall of 2004.

“I started asking around about the existence of a photo club at the very beginning of sophomore year, and no one really knew anything,” Schiebler said.

When Schiebler heard that Collins was also looking around for a photo club, she contacted Collins, and the two began planning.

“The next seven months were spent actually jumping through enough bureaucratic obstacles to get a new darkroom built and the supplies purchased,” Schiebler said.

The darkroom was then moved from the basement of the Butterfields to its current home, the basement of the Science Center.

Wesfoto’s mission is to provide darkroom access for students who are not enrolled in a photography class and therefore are not permitted to use the school’s other darkrooms in the CFA. The club provides access to a darkroom and also offers safety training sessions necessary darkroom use.

“The majority of members, I believe, are those who could never get into the photo classes here but have had some experience with darkroom work,” Schiebler said.

Though Schiebler and Collins have tried to enhance the Wesfoto experience by providing more activities for its members, such as inviting speakers, the fact remains that there is little interest in making Wesfoto more intensive.

“We didn’t want to make people feel like they had to partake in all the extra stuff if all they wanted to do was print their photos in peace,” Schiebler said.

“I was excited to find another outlet for photography on campus, because the formal photography classes are notoriously hard to get into, and I also wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to a semester-long class,” said Emily Schmidt ’10, a member of Wesfoto.

Wesfoto has over 100 names on its listserv, although Public Safety, which holds the key to the darkroom and lends it to Wesfoto members in exchange for their WesIDs, has only recorded about five people using the darkroom over the last four months.

Low attendance has been a problem, and the club must decide what to do after Schiebler and Collins graduate this spring.

“We discussed who may be interested in taking over the club next year, publicizing Wesfoto, the future of the club and possibly making a publication or staging a gallery show of student work,” Schmidt said.

For this semester, at least, Schiebler and Collins hope to organize a publication of photographs for the entire campus.

“Anyone interested in pursuing this venture should contact me or Simone,” Schiebler said.