Camera Club hosts nature photographer

By Rex Dolby


The Wassenberg Camera Club had the privilege of hosting a program on Photographing Wildflowers presented by Peter Noyes of Wapakoneta. His photographs have been featured in books, magazines, calendars and note cards. Currently he is the staff photographer for the Veterans Administration at the Dayton facility. He illustrated his presentation with outstanding photos of a wide variety of wildflowers.

Noyes stated he carries three field guides on wildflowers on photography trips.  He advised his listeners to do their research before leaving home. He said it was pointless to set out to photograph a wildflower in April if it doesn’t bloom till July. He commented that right now is a good time to shoot wildflowers because many of them are blooming, since the tree leaves have not developed much yet. This permits more sunlight to reach the ground and the longer days produce more light.

He also said to check the weather report. Wind and bright sun are two factors that can prevent a successful shot. He suggested that an overcast day produces the best light for a good exposure. Two aids he caries for a good exposure are a reflector to direct the light and a diffuser to soften it. He also packs a versatile tripod that can be put in a variety of positions to get his camera in the right position and a ring flash that can produce even illumination.

Noyes stressed that the biggest key to a successful shoot is to know your equipment as well as you can. He said he still carries his owner’s manual when he goes out just in case he needs to refer to it. He shoots exclusively in the raw mode as opposed to jpeg for instance. It is uncompressed and offers the most information about the photograph. It provides the best color and white balance control over the finished photo. This mode, however, does require much larger memory card.

He generally shoots a 1/100 of a second to control the depth of field and uses the manual settings for his desired results. He also advised to either use a cable release or a 3 second time delay to avoid any shake from the mirror’s movement.

Following his presentation, Noyes freely answered questions and offered a folder to all containing a DVD of 82 of his pictures accompanied with a list of the common name, scientific name, and the time it blooms for each flower. The meeting concluded with refreshments and conversation.

The next meeting of the Wassenberg Camera Club will be a planning session on Thursday April 24, at 7 p.m. Items to be discussed will include themes and entry guidelines for the Van Wert County Fair photography exhibit, competition guidelines for the club’s monthly photo competitions, makeup dates for programs missed due to bad weather and ideas for future programs and field trips.

Also on April 24, the Fort Wayne Photography Club (http://www.fwphotoclub.com) is offering a workshop on using the raw format for taking digital images on Thursday, April 24 at 7 p.m. The club meets at the Towne House Retirement Community, 2209 Saint Joe Center Rd., in Fort Wayne, IN. and the club’s website provides directions to the meeting, or you may Email dolbys2@embarqmail.com.

Wassenberg Camera Club meetings are open to anyone who has an interest in photography. If you have any questions regarding our camera club, classes or programs or would like to sign up please call the Wassenberg Art Center at 419.238.6837, email info@wassenbergartcenter.org or register for classes online at wassenbergartcenter.org. Hours during exhibits are Tuesday through Sunday 1–5 p.m. The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 214 S. Washington St. in Van Wert.