Who We Are
Our members include professional photographers, working artists, teachers, and photography enthusiasts. The common thread for all is the desire to improve our work and to share our love of photography with the public. Members work in any variety of ways, from pinhole and toy cameras to large format view cameras. The work is in digital, traditional color and black and white, silver, ink jet and platinum.
Benefits of Membership
We are learning together
Sharing and collaborating: As a member you have an opportunity to share your work with your peers during our monthly member meetings, excursions, workshops, and photo challenges. More experienced members are always happy to answer questions or explain the finer points of a particular technique. Occasionally, a member will ask if anybody has a particular piece of equipment to lend or rent for a weekend. Looking for help driving to a remote location? Unhappy with the sequencing of a series? Ask a member.
Print Review Sessions: PPF coordinates a monthly, in-person print discussion group at Multnomah Art Center. Participants who are current PPF members are encouraged to bring up to 5 prints to share with the group. Each person who shares photos will be provided with a few minutes to discuss their work. The audience is encouraged to ask questions of the image maker and provide constructive feedback about the images being presented. These meetings are the first Monday of the month and open to the public.
We are creating together
Photo Challenges: PPF hosts a monthly Photo Challenge that is shown at our monthly speakers meetings on the third Monday of the month. A topic is announced a few weeks in advance of the meeting and current members are encouraged to submit up to 5 photos. All submitted photos are then shown together in a slideshow at the start of the meeting.
Print Exchange: At our annual December party, current members who choose to participate are encouraged to bring prints to exchange with other image-makers. This is a wonderful opportunity to collect the work of other, talented PPF members.
Published works: For the past few years we have put together a theme-based book of member work. For example, the theme of the 2023 book was Personal Vision where members were encouraged to submit a series of photos detailing a recent or ongoing photo project. You can view and order past book using the Books menu at the top of this screen.
We are a community
Drawer at Blue Sky: Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery graciously provides a few display drawers. in the gallery to be managed by local photography associations with the intent of featuring work from their respective communities. The Portland Photographers’ Forum is lucky to have use of one. PPF members can submit work that will become available for public display for two months.
Member’s Night: We dedicate three meetings a year to our members and their work. Three photographers are invited to use 30 minutes to share their work and discuss it with the group. This is a great opportunity to get feedback on a project that is in process or to share some of your best work.
Monthly Meetings
Our monthly meetings on the third Monday of the month are held via Zoom. Our featured speakers are typically accomplished photographers from throughout the US and beyond. The monthly meetings also include a “photo challenge” segment, in which all members are invited to submit photos that reflect a specific theme.
If you are not a member, but would like to attend a monthly meeting, please contact us using the email form at the bottom of this page and ask to be added to our email list.
We have some fantastic speakers! Past speakers:
FRITZ LIEDTKE
Fritz holds a BFA in photography and printmaking, and has won numerous awards, grants, and residencies for his work. His images have been widely published by magazines such as National Geographic, Lenswork, PDN, Professional Photographer, View Camera Magazine, Rangefinder, Silvershotz, PhotoLife, Diffusion, and blogs such as Lenscratch, Photoeye, LensCulture, China Life Magazine, F-stop, and others.
MAGGIE STEBER
Maggie Steber is an internationally known documentary photographer, photo editor and educator. She has worked in 72 countries specializing in telling the stories of underrepresented people. Best known for her photo essays in National Geographic Magazine and her humanistic documentation of Haiti, she published Dancing on Fire: Photographs from Haiti with Aperture. Her nine-year project on her mother’s melancholic voyage through memory loss was made into a multimedia presentation by MediaStorm and won a Webby award.
SUSAN DIMOCK
Based in Bandon, Oregon, Susan Dimock specializes in wildlife and seascape images of the coast where she and her husband have lived for 20 years. Her travel images of Oregon are often seen in print and in on-line publications due to her tourism contract work and her previous affiliation with Circles in the Sand of Bandon. Susan has enjoyed solo exhibits of her images in various coastal venues over the last ten years and is represented by Second Street Gallery in Old Town, Bandon.
Drawer at Blue Sky
Blue Sky Gallery, also known as The Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, is a non-profit exhibition space for contemporary photography in Portland, Oregon. Blue Sky Gallery is dedicated to public education, began by showing local artists and then slowly expanded to national and international artists.
Portland Photographers’ Forum has its own non-juried community drawer at Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery, featuring the work of two PPF members each month of the year. See who’s currently showing on our Events Page.
More about Blue Sky
Outings, Exhibits & Workshops
We hold regular group outings to scenic locations, sponsor workshops, and participate in group shows at galleries around the region. We value friendship, sharing, encouragement and cooperation over competition.
Event Calendar
Ready to join us?
