Wiens is popular exhibitor at Art in the Park
For approximately 20 years the photography of Marion native Gerald Wiens has attracted the attention of wildlife and nature enthusiasts nationwide.
After returning to his hometown in July 2000, Gerald has been a regular exhibitor at Art in the Park during the past four years. Even before then, his works were a popular staple at the Walnut Valley (bluegrass) Festival in Winfield.
"The Marion show and the Walnut Valley Festival were always on the same weekend," Gerald explained. "I lived in Arkansas City at the time and Winfield was just a few miles away."
Today, Gerald's photography has hit the main stream. His photos of wildlife or scenic views have been published fairly regularly in "Kansas!" magazine and have earned him a large number of admirers. That makes preparing for a show a lot of work.
"I used to do about three or four shows a year until I changed jobs," Gerald said. "Now, we do about 12."
Self-employed in the home construction, remodeling, and photography business, Gerald returned to his hometown after leaving his previous job as director of the Chaplin Nature Center in Arkansas City. It was while working in that position he first began photographing wildlife.
"I started working there in 1981. One of the things I did was prepare a slide program about nature and wildlife for the schools," he explained.
The slides were photos of insects, amphibians, flowers, trees, mushrooms. "The whole gamut found in nature," Gerald said.
One of his photos, an opossum sitting in a tree, won first place among 14,000 entries in a contest and was published in the "National Wildlife Federation" magazine.
"I started getting phone calls and letters from people who wanted to buy the picture and it just grew from there," he said.
Grown it has. For each show Gerald prepares an inventory of somewhere between 400 and 500 photos matted in various sizes.
Except for one panoramic scene where a digital camera was necessary, Gerald uses a 35mm camera and film.
"I borrowed my son's digital camera for a project my wife wanted," he said. "I couldn't get what I wanted with my 35mm."
Gerald used the digital camera to snap eight different shots creating a panoramic view of a summer sunrise in the Flint Hills, near Matfield Green.
"I knew I needed some thin clouds to get color and I wanted a little bit of fog or haze to give me a little more time to get the photo," he said. "I don't know if you've ever watched, but once the sun breaks the horizon, it goes up very quickly."
Scouting out a location ahead of time, Gerald waited for a forecast of thin clouds and fog. The next day he and his son left at 4:30 a.m. for the Flint Hills to be on site before the sun rose. That day, however, was a bust because the sun rose on a "crystal clear" sky.
Ten days later however, conditions were just right and Gerald captured the spectacular scene on film.
"I was in the right place at the right time," he said. "Conditions were just right allowing me time to shoot."
The finished product, melding the eight separate photos seamlessly together using panoramic computer software, resulted in one scene 10 feet long.
"My wife plans to use it like a mural above our staircase," he explained.
Gerald took an earlier photo at the Flint Hills site using his 35mm camera about 15 minutes before sunrise which he is matting to sell at Art in the Park.
His interest in photography began as a Marion County youth in 4-H. Then as a college student he took a black-and-white photography class because he needed "one or two credits."
Although he studied black-and-white, Wiens said he only shoots in color. His subjects include opossums, ducks, songbirds, elk, deer, skunks, bobcats, and butterflies.
"I have no frogs and not many insect pictures sell," he said. "The most popular are songbirds like cardinals, bobcat kittens, a wolf picture, and an elk herd taken in Yellowstone."
After Art in the Park, Wiens and his wife, Jan, have several other shows on the agenda including a two-day event in Olathe, a four-day show in Shreveport, La., in October, an "unbelievable huge show" in War Eagle, Ark., and an event in the Kansas City area known as "Operation Wildlife" in November.
Wiens said photographing wildlife takes pre-planning.
"Most of the photos are taken either very early in the day or very late around sunrise and sunset," he explained, when the animals are moving. "At sunset the nocturnal animals come out.
"A lot of it is just being in the right place at the right time."
