Oakland Garden Club News

Twelve members of the Oakland Garden Club met in the Rosen room at the Oakland auditorium at 2:00 p.m., on Thursday April 9, 2015. Leila Heineman was hostess. Members gave pledge to the American flag and read the Garden Club Creed from their handbooks. Each member answered roll call. It was agreed that garden bed assignments would remain the same unless someone requested a change. Audrey Unwin reported she had bought coffee and a decorative container for it to keep in the cupboard. The rest of the meeting was devoted to the guest speaker.

Ina Glaubius from Wisner talked about taking pictures of flowers, butterflies, and insects. She brought framed examples of her work to illustrate points she made and passed them around as she talked. As she also likes to write, she began by reading two poems she had written about her work. The first contrasted human work with that of nature: construction and spider webs, painters and flowers, planes and butterflies or birds, track meets and grasshoppers. She continued with asking “Why not love dandelions, etc. They only reflect the regeneration and timing of nature—in plants, butterflies, moths, the orchestra of crickets, mosquitoes, etc. The second work read celebrated nature’s spectacular ballet in wild salsify–accompanied by many pictures if it.

When people have asked her about a preferred time of day to photograph she said “Not in summer between 11 and 4. Also, she uses a SLR digital camera with a macro lens which enables her to get close to her subject. She passed a close up of raindrops on dandelion puff, then ones of milkweed and then cosmos. Look at things from different angles. Don’t look directly at a flower—unless there’s a bug in it.

She showed a clear picture of a green plant under water taken at Yellowstone Park. Her pictures of sunflowers showed parts of a flower, some very close up. Of two different pictures of an African spoon daisy, the vibrant blue of one was subdued in the other. This type of variation will occur with the same flower being photographed at different times of day or even at different age of flower.

Two dramatic black and white photos—dewdrops on a spider web and an argiope spider on a spider web—she had taken at an earlier time with film rather than digital camera. She showed pictures of clematis and iris—try different angles or different parts of the flower. She reminded us—always to deadhead surrounding spent flowers first! A beautiful close picture of several purple allium, like the milkweed seeds and cleome, was difficult to take because the camera kept trying to re-focus on different parts of the tiny flower parts.

Flowers show up well in color, but yellow ones show up best in black and white. She showed a collection of bachelor button pictures, each a little different. Someone asked how many shots of each flower she would take before she found one she would like, and her answer was “about 20.” Then she would look at them, and if she didn‘t like any would erase them all and re-try.

For her insects and bugs, she will capture one with a small container, fasten netting over it, and put it in the refrigerator perhaps over night for it to chill. Then it will move slowly enough for her to photograph it. After about 3 minutes it will warm too much to photograph, and she will return it to its original spot. Pictures shown were butterfly on bachelor buttons, a fly on a storm window, close up of green and gray caterpillar, detail of a grasshopper showing its geometric color design, a painted lady on zinnas, azure dragonfly on weed stem, yellow swallowtail on zinna, a 5-spotted hawk moth or hummingbird moth in black and white on a 4-o’clock and one in color.

A b & w photo of a fly taken with film emphasized its enormous eyes, and a color of a snake

skin showed that its skin even covered its eyes.   A b & w was taken of a pink and white lined sphinx moth on a mirror. One of a bee was taken on a detail of a mum, another was a close up showing pollen on one leg. A close shot of a very green praying mantis illustrated its bending a leg at an angle a human could never replicate! One insect on a mirror had a very blue sky as background. Other b & w’s were cicada-killer wasp, monarch caterpillar on mum, empty monarch cocoon, spider web with entrapped fly, celery looper moth on mum, honey bee on a mum, and detail face of a predatory insect.

Proof that she has won prizes at county fairs and NE State Fair was in evidence from the many ribbons attached to her works. She has been judging photographing at fairs for 17 years, judging 4-H two times and open class three times at Burt Co. Fair. This year she is scheduled to judge at six county fairs.

Cathi McMurtry, Secretary