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This article was originally published in the Photo Community News email newsletter.
I hear from camera club leaders every week, and the conversation almost always lands in the same place. They can’t get anyone under 40 through the door, and most of them have quietly decided that younger photographers just don’t care about the craft the way earlier generations did. I wrote about the disappearing membership problem in Camera Clubs and Photography Organizations Are Disappearing, and since then I’ve kept digging into what’s actually going on with the generation clubs can’t seem to reach. What I found doesn’t support the story most clubs are telling themselves.
“The camera clubs that will still be alive in ten years are the ones willing to ask a hard question right now: is our club a place where younger photographers feel seen, heard, and welcome?”
The Generation You Can’t Recruit Prints More Than You Do
Here’s something that should stop you cold. According to a 2025 survey commissioned by the holiday brand Haven and covered by Digital Camera World, young adults aged 18 to 27 print twice as many photographs as older generations. Forty-three percent of Gen Z respondents said they regularly print their images. Only five percent of Boomers said the same. Let that sink in for a second. The generation your club can’t attract cares about photography enough to actually put it on paper, more than the generation running most club boards does.
The problem isn’t that younger photographers don’t care about the craft. They do. It’s that most camera clubs aren’t offering what they’re looking for.
The Fear Nobody Puts on a Membership Form
Before we go any further, there’s a second number worth sitting with. Research from GWI, a global consumer research firm that surveyed more than 1,800 Gen Z respondents in late 2024, found that eight in ten of them say they’ve felt lonely in the past year. That same research found Gen Z isn’t indifferent to connection. They’re actively looking for it, and for spaces that make them feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves.
What’s also clear, from every conversation I’ve had with club leaders and every younger photographer I’ve talked with, is that the biggest emotional barrier keeping a younger person from joining any new group isn’t cost and it isn’t time. It’s a simple fear: what if I don’t fit in? That fear is worth sitting with because many camera clubs do a pretty good job of confirming it before a new member ever gets to a second meeting.
Mentorship Is Not the Same Thing as Being Told What to Shoot
Here’s the pattern I keep seeing. Younger photographers genuinely want to learn from people who know more than they do. They appreciate experience, and they want mentorship. But there’s a condition attached to that. They want older members to help them solve problems and create the photography they want to make. They don’t want to be told how their photography has to look. There’s a significant difference between those two things. One is teaching. The other is imposing.
The generation that grew up on TikTok, YouTube, and Discord learned to see those platforms as collaborative spaces, places where people teach each other, share work honestly, and grow together. That’s the model they expect to find at your club too.
The Ribbon Problem
Which brings me to competitions, and I’m going to be direct here. I’ve made no secret of where I stand on this. Competitions serve a purpose, and plenty of members genuinely love them. What I am saying is this: when the member with the most ribbons is treated as the most important person in the room, and competitions become the yardstick for who holds sway, you’ve built a culture that, loudly, tells younger photographers they don’t belong yet. That belonging has to be earned by playing a game they didn’t come here to play.
Younger photographers are looking for communities that see them as they are right now, not as competitors on a ranking system. They want field trips and workshops. They want honest conversation about photography. They’re not chasing ribbons. They’re chasing growth.
Keep the Competitions. Stop Worshipping Them.
The fix isn’t a demolition job. It’s a rebalancing act. Keep the competitions your longtime members love. Keep the traditions that matter to them. Just make sure those things don’t define who matters in the room. Level the playing field enough that a member who has never entered a competition feels just as at home as your most decorated one.
If you’re a club president who has tried to attract younger members and keeps striking out, here’s the most honest thing I can tell you: you’re not going to get them unless you’re willing to change something. The world evolves. Clubs that refuse to adapt don’t slowly decline. They go extinct. We all know how that worked out for the dinosaurs.
Younger photographers are out there. They’re passionate, and they’re actively looking for community. The question worth asking, the one at the top of this article, is whether yours is a place they’d actually want to stay.
Now go pick up that camera and shoot something! Because – “Your BEST shot is your NEXT shot!” — Joe Edelman
