A science teacher at the St. Mark's School of Texas, John Mead, has been selected as May Photographer of the Month by the Friends of Hagerman.
Mead began following a family tradition of vacation travel photography while in high school. His interest in nature photography began to grow when he moved to Texas after completing his education at Duke University. Although he only discovered Hagerman a few months ago, Mead will have a virtual album of twelve photos taken at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge featured on the Friends website this month.
Mead is a member of the Nature Photography Club at Hagerman NWR and the Heard Photo Club. His photo "Eyes of the World" earned the People's Choice award at the Darkroom Galleries "Into the Wild" exhibition in Vermont in 2012. In 2010, the photograph “Schwabacher’s Landing" captured a second place award in a Wiley publisher's nature photography contest. The Center for Birds of Prey in Awendaw, South Carolina invited Mead to be their primary photographer during the 2011 fundraiser, which featured wildlife icon Jack Hanna. Recently the Allen Public Library hosted a month-long exhibition of his bird photos in coordination with their “Allen Reads!” program. This led to his being featured by the magazine, the Allen Image as the cover story for the April 2013 issue.
In his teaching career he has led student trips and traveled for conferences to many scenic areas of the U.S. and to New Zealand, Botswana and South Africa, always with camera in hand. Mead’s choice of equipment is currently from Canon: a 7D body and a number of lenses including 100mm Macro for shooting insects and flowers and a 100x400 mm telephoto lens, particularly for the bird shots at Hagerman.
The Photographer of the Month program is just one of the opportunities for photographers at Hagerman NWR. During BirdFest Texoma, May 3 -5, photographers may participate in advanced and intermediate nature photography workshops and field trips.
The Nature Photography Club meets bimonthly; the next meeting is set for May 11 at 12:30 p.m. at the Refuge, which is located on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, at 6465 Refuge Road, Sherman.
Later this year the club will sponsor the fourth annual Hagerman NWR Photography Contest.
For more information visit www.friendsofhagerman.com or email fohphotoclub@gmail.com