Camera Club catches up on competitions

By Rex Dolby


The Wassenberg Camera Club met Thursday, June 12 for competition and business.  Due to the weather shutting down the March 13 meeting, competition in Winter Scenes was first on the club’s agenda, which was ably run by vice president, Stuart Jewett.

Mike Holloway’s print of a snow-covered cart at his mom’s, won first, and Joe Shramm’s print of drifted snow at the Bresler Reservoir, which is just west of Lima, took second.  Holloway’s slide of snow falling from trees won the slide category.

In the Flower competition, Will Hawkins swept the print competition with a winning water lily taken at the Toledo Zoo and a rose growing in his back yard. Rex Dolby won the slide division with two pictures from Smiley Park.  His iris in the Children’s Garden took first and a peony from the Peony Garden won second.

Stuart then appealed for workers to take in, pictures, assist with judging and hosting the exhibit at the 2014 Van Wert County Fair. Although he received some volunteers, more are needed and should contact Chris Wilson as soon as possible. Photo categories this year are: At the Fair, On the Farm, Flowers, Reflections, and Special Effects.

Secretary Rex Dolby displayed recent gifts of photography equipment to the club. Wanda Uncapher of Van Wert gave two film cameras through Bill Stanley. One is a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash camera built from Sept. 1950-July 1960. This model could use 620 or 120 film and would accept a large variety of Kodak flash units. The second camera is a Nikon N5005 SLR, which was produced between 1991 and ’94.  It has TTL metering, auto focus and uses 35 mm film. It has the instruction manual and accessories list with it as well.

John Freund of Van Wert also donated two film cameras plus a camcorder to the club’s collection. One camera is a Nikon One Touch 200 with a 38-70 mm lens built in 1991. The second camera, with its flash attachment, is a Canon Canonet 28 with a 40 mm f 1:28 lens built from 1971-’76.  The camcorder is a Sony CCD-M8u with its instruction manual, battery pack and charger. Using the 8 mm video format cassette, was the start of the Handycam series in 1985. The club gratefully accepted these additions to their collection and extends a heartfelt thank you to the donors.

Dolby had set up his 6′ x 9′ Fast Fold projection screen for the club’s consideration. Although the consensus was that it was a fine screen and marveled at its engineering and compact storage ability, as long as our meetings were confined to the present location, it was not a good choice and suggested that it be offered for sale to the public. Rex said he’d probably check with churches or performance groups who travel and have graphics to show since it is capable of showing rear projection.

The club welcomed returning visitors Julia Miller and Wassenberg Art Center office manager Matt Temple to the meeting.

The club’s next meeting will be Thursday, July 10 at 7 p.m. at the Wassenberg Art Center. Wildlife is the competition theme and we’ll make up the Night slide and prints competition. Tracy Sterling and Will Hawkins will present on Low-light Photography that evening.

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.