Sally Wolf

Interviewed May 2007
By: Eric Schoch

If you had asked Sally Wolf about her artistic interests before she joined Photo Venture Camera Club in February 2006, she might not have even mentioned photography.

Jeweler, painter, graphic artist, teacher, web site designer, even an assistant to wedding photography (and club member) Dale Pickett -- she is, or has been, all those things, and doing her own photography wasn't high on the list.

But that was before a web site design project led to a meeting with club member and former president Robert Gough, and two months of "you've got to come to our club" followed.

Now her photographs regularly win high praise at the club's monthly competitions and she's begun organizing monthly photo field trips for club members, dubbed "Sally's Saturdays."

And yes, she'll now probably list photography among her main artistic interests, and her photographer's eye is often on: "Just driving down the street I'll see 20 things that could be a picture."

Her artist's eye can be seen in her approaches to color, composition and other aspects of her photographic images.  For example, "in a painting, the subject can go off the edge of the screen and that can influence your eye to come in, out, and around the painting.

I have found many times from judges that a photo center of interest should be complete on the camera canvas -- they don't like how I 'cut' images off.  But if everything was always in the frame on a painting it would be boring!"

The mother of two grown sons, Sally's "day job" is processing insurance claims for a dentist.  She also makes jewelry and sells it at art shows.

Sally's first meeting was a night when competition results were announced, and she was taken back by the judge's candid criticisms -- some of the club's monthly competitions are more blunt than others.

But club members were reassuring and urged her to "take this as a learning experience."  "And that's the way I've looked at every competition."

Being active in Photo Venture has been fun, has been instructive, and, she says, "I find myself going out on weekends to take pictures, instead of staying home and cutting the grass."