All about BPIC....

Our History

BPIC was formed in 1996. The original club was called the Staff Association Photographic Club, and it was based in an ancient wooden building in the grounds of the Belfast City Hospital.  Membership of the club was then open only to those who were members of the Eastern Health and Social Services Board (as was then) Staff Association.

In 1996 we were 'evicted' from our building to make way for what is now the Renal Unit at BCH, moving to our current home at Morton Community Centre.  A short time later, the Maysfield Camera Club was evicted from the old Maysfield Leisure Centre.  The membership of the Maysfield Camera Club joined us at Morton and the two clubs were amalgamated, retaining the name of the Staff Association Photographic Club.

We maintained our ties with the EHSSB Staff Association until 1999, when we broke all our connections.  As this was a break from the past, there was no need to retain the 'Staff Association' in the name of the club.  The name of the club was then formally changed to 'Belfast Photo-Imaging Club' - with a membership of 17 !

The name was chosen because, even in 1999, digital imaging was in its infancy, and we chose to recognise that fact in our name. Little did we know that film would become redundant, and digital imaging would prevail.

With thanks to Billy Leahey APAGB for providing the Club history.

BPIC today

Belfast Photo Imaging Club is now one of the top camera clubs in Northern Ireland – and one of the friendliest!

We have a membership that is diverse in every way, including age, gender, ethnicity and ability, with photographers ranging from novice to professionals at the top of their game.

We meet on most Thursday evenings during our season (September to May) at Morton Community Centre (Lisburn Road) between 7:30pm and 10:00pm.

Our aim is to help all members to develop their photography skills and knowledge, and to have some fun along the way.

We are registered with both the Northern Ireland Photographic Association (NIPA) and the Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) and we enter the open and themed NIPA competitions each season. We actively encourage our members to seek accreditation via the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) and/or IPF, and provide mentoring assistance to help in this regard.

We hold several studio nights in the club premises, invite quality guest speakers to the club meetings to share their knowledge and experience of photography, and we organise several club outings throughout the year.

We communicate with our diverse membership mostly by email and via social media (see links on top right of every page of this site) and in 2015, we started to produce a regular digital newsletter exclusively for our membership, which is delivered on a regular basis as a PDF to all members' inboxes - it has proved to be very popular.  For a sample newsletter click here.

New members are always made to feel welcome.