Photographer Mark Dunlap may make several trips and take hundreds of digital photographs of his subject before he’s satisfied.
“I took at least 100 shots of a hummingbird before I got the image I wanted,” he said.
For many of his flower photos he said he would set up his camera and take multiple images throughout the day.
“My nephew came up to me one day and asked, ‘How many photos can you take of one flower,’” he said.
Dunlap’s nature and landscape photographs will be exhibited in the Mary L. Martin Art Gallery at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center from Sunday through Oct. 1.
“This is the first exhibit of my photographs, and I’m kind of nervous,” Dunlap said.
DUNLAP BECAME interested in photography when he was a senior at Marmaton Valley High School in 1981. He said he was thumbing through some photography magazines one day during his journalism class and was “blown away” by the images captured by the photographers.
“I knew I wanted to be a photographer and bought my first single-lens reflex camera before heading off to college,” he said.
He began classes at Allen County Community College where he became interested in printing. He transferred to Pittsburg State University and earned a degree in graphics with an emphasis in technical printing.
He toyed with the idea of becoming a commercial photographer while living in Kansas City after college graduation, but, he said, “Being a young, single guy I wanted an adventure. I didn’t want to grow old just wishing I’d explored the possibilities of the world around me.”
He said he always liked working with animals so in 1993 he packed his belongings and moved to northern Minnesota where he worked for a musher, the driver of a dogsled.
Within a year he had his own kennel and was racing his dogs in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, winning numerous championships.
“Some of my most magical moments were racing with my dogs,” he said.
IN 2000, his life took another turn when he began working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a wild land firefighter and later as a helicopter crew member. He has also been an emergency medical services first responder for a volunteer fire department in Minnesota.
The shutter bug bit him again in 2005 when he saw everyone around him with point-and-shoot digital cameras.
He bought a 4 megapixels digital camera and said, “I couldn’t believe the clarity of the photos I got from that little camera.”
One of the photos in his exhibit is a compilation of photos taken with his first digital camera.
Three years later as his interest in photography grew, he bought an SLR digital camera, lenses and lights and began compiling his portfolio with images of flowers, nature and occasional portraits.
DUNLAP RETURNED to the Iola area in October 2009 to be near his aging mother, the late June Dunlap, and other family members.
“Mom had fell and broke her hip before I got here. She died three days after I got home,” he said.
He is employed by Diebolt Lumber as an outside salesman, but hopes the exhibit will jump-start his career as a photographer.
