Travel Planning
Wayne and Judy Guenther found their love of travel when stationed in Germany with the Army in the early 1980’s and subsequently squeezed in trips around work requirement and singing engagements. In 2009 Judy retired and joined the already-retired Wayne, and since then they have visited 47 countries, Antarctica, and have taken three trans-USA and one Canadian Maritimes road trips. In 2019 they travelled a total of 22 weeks. Their favorite destination is a toss-up between New Zealand and South Georgia Island, but their favorite country, visited numerous times, is France.
Their trips fall into two broad categories: (1) Group trips and (2) Self-Planned trips. Both categories require planning, and they have found a variety of resources which have made their trips rewarding. The tools and resources they use are applicable to all the planning types, varying in their importance. Regardless of the category or destination. they always look for photographic interest and have a camera handy. This Member’s Forum will talk about decisions of where, when, and how to travel, and tools and resources that they have found useful to that end.
Wayne and Judy’s presentation can be viewed here: Planning Travel for Photography with Wayne & Judy Guenther (Username and Password required.)
Bios for Wayne and Judy Guenther
Wayne Guenther began his photography avocation in the late 1960s but became increasingly involved with Art Photography in the mid-1990s. Membership in Gallery West and the Art League (both in Alexandria, VA) nudged him to regularly create new work and develop a style. In 2009 he was a charter member and President of the Workhouse Photography Group (Lorton, VA) and remained active there until 2012 when he fully retired. Wayne sang in local performing ensembles for many years, one of which rehearsed on Tuesday nights, so he didn’t join NVPS until 2015. He was awarded the Class 3 Digital Photographer of the Year designation for 2016-2017 and was judged Best in Show for his landscape photo in the 2018 Nature Visions exposition.
Judy Guenther shared her love of travel and adventure with Wayne, but her latent interest in photography didn’t begin to blossom until 2009 when she moved from her point-and-shoot to a Nikon D90 and enthusiastically embraced both retirement travel and the enjoyment of finding interesting subjects. Wayne obligingly passed along more equipment and advice (why does the aperture get smaller when the number get bigger was never satisfactorily answered), and near-constant practice and two Allison Shaw week-long classes and one with Nevada Wier quickly honed her skills. Her latent artistic esthetics came into their own with even more travel that introduced new subjects like wildlife, landscapes, abstracts, and architecture. Like Wayne, she retired from the singing group that conflicted and joined NVPS in 2015. She has received awards both in Nature Visions and NVPS, is an active member of The Art League in Alexandria, Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis, and the F11 Women’s Photography group.
Both Wayne and Judy converted to the Micro Four-thirds system in 2014 and use Olympus E-M1 cameras with a variety of Olympus, Lumix, and Sigma lenses.
