About Scott Oberle:
Scott was a middle school teacher for 36 years, specializing in United States history, computers, and teaching b&w photography in the early years. Having taught photography for 15 years, he got burned out and didn’t take another picture for many years. The darkroom became a good place to store wine! A few years ago he saw the need to reprint some of the early high quality Hasselblad slides, and not wanting to go back into the darkroom he began to explore the possibility of doing everything digitally. What began as a simple scan and print operation a few years ago has rekindled the passion and has turned into a fabulous hobby. In addition to photography, his other major diversion is riding road bicycles whenever possible. He manges to cover between over 3,000 miles yearly. And of course, spoiling the grandkids. A new pursuit which has proven to be rather challenging is web site construction. Just when you think you know it all... We have recently purchased a TrailManor (wwwtrailmanor.com) travel trailer which serves as a base on our photography trips. The grandkids like it also!
About Joyce Oberle:
Joyce was a homemaker for many years, being a stay-at-home mom for 4 kids. When the children got older, she went back to school and fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher. She spent her teaching career in the primary grades, having classes at most grade levels and eventually becoming a reading specialist. In retirement she learned that many of the techniques she learned as a teacher can now be shared with her 7 grandchildren, who all love to spend time with Grandma. And who all seem to share her love of reading! Her main hobby is anything having to do with fabric and thread …this includes making clothes for the grandkids and their dolls, embroidering, and quilting. Quilting is her major passion now, and she has won many awards in local county fairs. She is serving as the President of our local quilt guild this year. We have added a gallery to this site featuring her work if you are interested. In addition, she finds time to push Scott around from the back of their tandem bicycle! She has a very good eye, and besides contributing an image every once in awhile, gives Scott advice and counsel on his work. She has also become very adept at cutting mats whenever we need to frame our work.
Photography Equipment:
Cameras: Nikon D40x, Nikon D50, Nikon D100, Nikon D2x, and Nikon D300. Currently used are the D40x and the D300.
Lenses: All Nikon: 12-24, 24-70, 70-200VR, 18-200VR, and 60 micro. Appropriate Singh-Ray filters are used as necessary.
Tripod: Manfrotto carbon with Kirk L-brackets on the cameras. Almost all of our images are taken from a tripod.
Printer: Our fine prints are completed on a professional Epson 7600 24" wide inkjet printer, using Ultrachrome inks.
Paper: We use Epson Premium Luster and Moab Entrada papers exclusively.
Note: This paper and ink combination has a minimum life expectance of 70 years.
Film Scanner: Nikon Coolscan 8000
The Computer:
All work is done on a state-of-the-art Compaq computer with dual monitors. We expose all images in the 16 bit RAW format with no compression when saved. They are opened into Photoshop Lightroom or Nikon Capture NX, with minor additional work done in Photoshop as necessary. Software is only used to slightly enhance and sharpen the image; no major manipulation is ever done. Our goal is to reproduce the natural scene as closely as we can.
