Let the water fall where it may

By Rex Dolby

The Wassenberg Camera Club met Thursday, March 22, at the Art Center for an informational meeting.

President Doug Heckler asked for categories to be suggested to the Fair Board for their photography exhibit this fall.  Since extra suggestions were made to provide a choice, publishing the list will come later after the board has made their selections.

Doug then turned the meeting over to Tracy Sterling, who presented an excellent program on photographing some of Ohio’s nearby waterfalls.  He described each of the falls, where they are located, what to expect in trying to photograph them, and the settings he used to take his pictures.

Since directions depend somewhat on the location of the reader, here are directions on how to obtain directions to each falls.  Search for Ohio Waterfalls.  Click on Map of Ohio Waterfalls.  Click on the Greenville Falls. This will bring up a page providing details and a picture of the falls.  When you have noted all the information you wish on the page, click on the Next in the upper right corner.  This will take you to Ludlow Falls. Repeating the previous actions will take you to the West Milton Cascades, Charleston Falls, and the Clifton Gorge Nature Preserve, which is the location of  the 25 ft. Amphitheater Falls. Anyone not having a computer could access this information from a computer on the second floor of the Brumback Library.

Tracy said that in several cases, overhanging trees blocked a good view of the falls.  He suggested that you wear old shoes so you could wade out into the stream to get a better view, or go in the early spring or late fall when the leaves would not be such a factor.  He advised to go after there had been a significant rain so that the falls would be fuller, but not when the out flow would have a dangerous volume nor spread out of the stream’s banks to limit where you could go to see the falls.

He said that judges seem to prefer pictures of moving water with some blur in them.  For his pictures, he used an ISO setting of 100.  With this setting, he was able to use a slower shutter speed to blur the falls.  His settings ranged from 1/25th of a second to some at over five seconds.  With multiple settings, you can pick the result you like best and his pictures demonstrated this point.  His lens opening was just large enough to obtain a good exposure.

Heckler provided some additional locations for nature photography.  These included Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve, Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Loblolly Marsh and Wetland Preserve, and concluded with pictures from the Fort Wayne Railroad Society.

Information on the club’s $5 Discount Cards can be obtained by calling the club’s secretary at 419.238.4545 or the Art Center at 419.238.6837.

The club welcomed Chris Wilson of Van Wert to the meeting.  The club’s next meeting will be on Thursday, April 12, at 7 p.m. at the Wassenberg Art Center.  “Macro” will be the theme for competition that evening.