Prints – Ceasar Sharper
Ceasar Sharper’s photographic journey began when he took a photography course in college. That was a very long time ago when he began to learn the fundamentals of focus, exposure and composition. Unfortunately, the development of his photography skills stalled upon his graduation from college and commissioning into the Armed Forces.
After retiring as a Colonel in the Air Force, he began to dabble into digital photography. He purchased by first bridge camera in 2005 and a digital single lens reflex in 2008. He made the commitment to grow beyond the basics and improve his skills after seeing the juried in photographs at the 2009 Nature Photography Expo at Meadowlark. Those outstanding photographs provided the inspiration he needed and caused him to search a club to support his renewed interest in photography.
He attributes much of his photography improvement to his membership in NVPS. He learned a lot from the critiques of all competition entries over the first eight months of competition; he even waited until May 2010 before he felt he knew enough to submit his first completion entry where he earned a 3rd place in Black & White prints. The following club year he applied the insight and acquired skills which resulted in his being awarded the 2011 Versatile Photographer of the Year in the Novice Category.
While Ceasar photographs several of the different types of photography, his passion is wildlife and landscapes. The photographs he selected for Members Gallery include his Juried in Prints from Nature Visions and the NVPS End of Year award winners.
Since 2011 he has been an active member in NVPS. He participated in the Portfolio Project and provided a Members Gallery presentation on Civil War Reenactments. Currently Ceasar is the Co-Chair for the Portfolio Project and a Nikon shooter J
Ceasar’s website can be found at http://csharperphotography.com/
Digital Images – John Eppler
John has been a member of NVPS for a couple years. He initially came to a meeting over two years ago to visit and decided that when the time was right and he had retired he would join. In the first year of competition he was promoted from Class 1 to Class 2.
John has been taking photos most of his life, with Kodak box cameras, but did not get serious until 1972 when a friend loaned him a 35mm SLR for his driving trip west. He took many wonderful pictures. A picture from the Black Canyon of the Gunnison hangs on his living room wall. John photographed with Minolta cameras for several years, developing and printing transparencies, but in 2003, he finally came “out of the closet” and bought his first digital camera.
John considers himself an advanced amateur, only because he does not sell enough images to earn a living at it. He has a website to show his images (http://johnepplerphoto.com), but has sold only a few. John is a member of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) and has been a co-organizer for Unexpected Treasure Meetup. He will be the organizer for the new Northern Virginia NANPA Nature Photography Meetup.
Most of the classes John has taken have been informal seminars and workshops with Kelby, NANPA, George Lepp or Nature Visions. He regularly views webinars on several topics on Lightroom, Photoshop and general photography topics. John has been an intense reader of photography magazines for years, including Petersen’s Photographic, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography, Natures Best and Nature Photographer.
For a couple of years, John shot commercial photography for sports teams, mainly to develop a consistent method that gets repeatable results. So to speak, he was developing discipline for taking portraits and group shots. He found it was very boring, but educational. John’s primary love is wildlife and landscape. He is so impressed with animal behavior and the beauty of our parks and wild places. National Wildlife Refuges are his favorite places to photograph.
John has two Canon 7Ds with a wide assortment of lenses, but his favorite lens is his 500mm f4 (Big Mama). His favorite gadget is CamRanger and motorized head. They allow him to setup the camera and remotely operate from his tablet.
John is semi-retired and works on-call for Honeywell. He is also contracted to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to perform quality assessments on satellite programs. This allows him to travel and take side trips for photography. John is married to Barbara Eppler, also a member of NVPS. He has two daughters, a step-daughter and six grandchildren.
John and Barbara are preparing to RV full time within the next year. The plan is to spend a couple of years touring the country, then volunteering in parks and refuges as campground hosts or manning visitor centers. This will allow John to spend more time in the parks and wild places he loves to photograph.
