Limelight Exhibit

Walt Schumacher started his career in photography like many other photographers… in the bathroom. (Temporarily converted into a darkroom, of course!) The magic of seeing a picture “materialize” on a piece of paper has stuck with him. For about 10 years,Walt worked in photo labs… the kind that print portraits, weddings and commercial images for professional photographers. Seeing thousands of those images provided a great education. Eventually he was doing weddings and portraits, too. But his main fascination was nature, especially flowers.

Then along came Janet. Even before they were married,Walt got her a good 35mm camera. She was fascinated, and absorbed all he had to teach.When they moved from their native St. Louis they spent their free time exploring and photographing their new environment (Indiana).

Over the next few years, they attended a dozen seminars by top-notch photographers, and traveled as far north as Canada, and as far west as Hawaii, shooting pictures. Walt then combined his knowledge of photography and computers to scan their slides (Janet is now all digital) and started printing on the computer.

Janet took her commercial drive and propelled them into art fairs, to show off their work.They have now shown at well over a dozen fairs and museums, from Minneapolis to Huntsville, and have won numerous awards. Janet recently participated in the “Exploring the Senses” exhibit celebrating the 2005 National Women’s History Month at Athens State University.

The best advice they ever got, which really drives their photography, is to stop and determine exactly what about the subject excites you. It could be the color, the light, the texture… Decide what it is, then work on how to accentuate that aspect, before you take the picture. Change angles; eliminate clutter; find a complimentary background, and compose the picture to bring out that exciting aspect. In the printing process, continue refining it. Walt and Janet both use Photoshop to “purify” the image, rather than distort or manipulate it. They balance the color, contrast and saturation to try to produce a coherent statement, where all the elements of the picture work together harmoniously.