When people couldn’t connect in-person, Boston Camera Club looked for new ways for photographers to click. The nonprofit’s first outdoor exhibit, “The Focused Eye: Our Unique Views,” spreads 88 member photographs over a ribbon-like display along Fan Pier in the Seaport District. Perusing the photos is free of change, and the show will remain on view through November.
As the title suggests, the exhibit shows off each individual photographer’s perspective, ranging in style from portraits to landscapes and nature shots taken all over the world. The display is made up of five 50-foot banners, and exhibit curator Emily Belz took extra care to sequence it all according to shape, color, or subject matter, finding a way to link one image to the next.
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“It was this fabulous challenge to envision how these 88 unique photographs could come together to form a cohesive whole,” Belz said in Boston Neighborhood Network’s 30-minute “Around Town”documentary, produced especially for the photo show.
In addition to Boston Neighborhood Network, BCC worked with other community partners to respond to the exhibit in creative ways. Individuals from Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Boston Latin Academy, and Mission Hill Women’s Writing Group, among others, produced responses including poems, prose, and video. Visitors can access them by scanning the exhibit’s various QR codes, located under each photo. “Around Town” can be viewed online at guide.bnntv.org.
BCC president Tom Hill likes to think of the Fan Pier display in a musical sense, comparing the 88 photographs to the 88 keys of a piano.
“We have individual notes on a grand piano, and they’re arranged like a melody and groupings like chords,” Hill said in a video interview. “I also think of the community partners who responded to the photographs, and it’s like little embellishments of the melodies and of the improvisations.”
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Founded in 1881, the Boston Camera Club has over 150 members and is the second oldest camera club in the country. Planning the outdoor photo show took an entire year and started with an anonymous gift, according to Hill. BCC will host an opening reception and community celebration Sunday from 1-3 p.m. In case of rain, the reception will move to July 25.
THE FOCUSED EYE: OUR UNIQUE VIEWS
At Fan Pier, through November. bostoncameraclub.photos
Riana Buchman can be reached at riana.buchman@globe.com.