And the winner is Wayne Schweifler, and the winner is Wayne Schweifler and the winner is Wayne…. We’ve been hearing that a lot lately about one of our new members who moved rapidly up from the Intermediate level to the Advanced level.  Wayne joined our club at the invitation of some of our members who attend a breakfast club on Monday mornings.  At first he was a little unsure of his ability to compete, especially after seeing some of the really high quality images shown at competitions.  But it wasn’t long until he was winning awards himself.  At the 2006 January banquet Wayne received the award for Best Picture and 2^nd place in the Intermediate Division.

When asked how he feels about competitions after having been so successful, he responds that he thinks of competitions as a learning experience.  “Every judge brings a different perspective.  There is always room for improvement.”

A native of Michigan, Wayne has lived in California since 1960.  He is now retired for a second time.  After retiring from a Union Carbide administrative position in sales he trained as a paralegal and worked in that capacity as well as computer system manager. In 2003 Wayne took his second retirement and he and his wife Margot moved to the desert.

Wayne’s interest in photography was originally piqued by a California history class term project about the California Missions.  To complete the project he decided to visit all of the California Missions and take slides of them.  With his Argus C-3 in hand he began his life-long interest in travel photography.  Now using a digital Nikon Coolpix 5700 Wayne also enjoys photographing landscapes and doing  macro work. 

Recently Wayne and Margot have been structuring their travel to encompass photography and often choose locations based on their photographic potential. And Margot has recently joined the club, too!

This last summer they took a 6 week driving trip for a high school reunion and a family reunion.  Traveling from Michigan to Quebec with many points in between, they took pictures all along their route.  Wayne has assured us that we will be seeing the fruits of these endeavors in the coming months.  We look forward to that, Wayne!