Camera Club Photographers of New Jersey: From Hoboken to Trenton
A Free Lecture with Gary Saretzky

Date: Sunday, November 1
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Hoboken Historical Museum
Admission: Free

As a companion program to the Hoboken Historical Museum’s Main Gallery exhibition, What They Saw: Hoboken’s Amateur Photography Clubs, 1889–1934, join photography historian Gary Saretzky for an engaging look at the vibrant camera club movement that flourished across New Jersey at the turn of the twentieth century.

The lecture begins with an introduction to some of New Jersey’s earliest photography organizations, including the Hoboken Camera Club, Newark Camera Club, and Plainfield Camera Club, placing Hoboken’s amateur photographers within the broader statewide movement that helped shape photography as both an artistic pursuit and a popular pastime.

The program then turns to Grant Castner (1863–1935), a founding member of the Trenton Camera Club and one of New Jersey’s most accomplished amateur photographers. Through Castner’s striking photographs, attendees will explore how camera club members documented landscapes, waterways, architecture, and everyday life while advancing photography as a creative medium during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Drawing on decades of research into New Jersey’s photographic history, Saretzky will also discuss the growth of amateur photography, the role camera clubs played in fostering technical skill and artistic expression, and how these organizations connected photographers throughout the state during the era explored in the Museum’s exhibition. He will also share perspectives from his own experience as a longtime member of the Princeton Camera Club, offering a fascinating comparison between today’s photography clubs and their nineteenth-century predecessors.

About the Speaker

Gary Saretzky is an archivist, photographer, educator, and one of New Jersey’s foremost authorities on the history of photography. He served as Monmouth County Archivist for more than 25 years and previously taught photography and the history of photography at Mercer County Community College for 35 years. He has published more than 100 articles and reviews on photography and photographic history, lectures regularly throughout New Jersey, and continues his extensive research documenting nineteenth-century New Jersey photographers.

Admission is free. Please register here!