WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER TO LEAD WORKSHOP, PRESENTATION MARCH 10

HATTIESBURG - Budding young artists have put pen to paper and brush to canvas in a hands-on program at The University of Southern Mississippi this semester and will exhibit their work in April at the Fine Arts Building. The show will feature the fruits of their creativity and art investigative efforts with several activities planned for the opening.

Recently launched through the Department of Art/Art Education in conjunction with the Community Arts School and partially funded by the Hattiesburg Arts Council, the Young Visual Artists program will be open 10 a.m.-noon April 12 and will run through April 16. Activities on opening day will include a reception, a PowerPoint presentation documenting the children's art-making, and an art activity designed for the children, family, friends and exhibition patrons.

The children, ranging from kindergarteners to seniors in high school, have worked on an intensive basis to produce quality two- and three-dimensional work in large amounts.

The program is twofold - community children attend art sessions on Saturdays at Southern Miss while volunteering art education students, both graduate and undergraduate, offer art activities to children at the Pine Grove Treatment Center of Hattiesburg.

Children and teachers both benefit from this program. The children explore a variety of art materials, learn about different visual artists and experience the life-changing properties of art. For the art education majors, they are given the opportunity to put into practice theoretical perspectives learned in their academic courses at Southern Miss.

Under faculty supervision, the university students plan and design art projects, write lessons, deliver instruction and interact closely with the children and their parents.

For more information on the program or the free exhibition, contact Elizabeth Leal, program director, at (601) 266-5815 or e-mail her at Elizabeth.Leal@usm.edu.

OCEAN SPRINGS -- Award-winning wildlife photographer Tom Ulrich will lead two photographic events at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory on Wednesday, March 10.

He will present a nature photography workshop from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and then a talk and slide show called "Wildlife Images 2003" at 7 p.m., both at The University of Southern Mississippi GCRL.

Admission to the evening event is free and will be held in the Caylor Auditorium at GCRL. The veteran photographer will feature photos from his 2003 photographic safaris abroad and in North America. He will answer questions and sign his books during the reception following his slide show.

The registration fee for the all-day workshop is $50 per person, payable to GCRL. Registration includes a continental breakfast, light lunch and snacks. Participation is limited to 20. Though the workshop is geared toward beginners, Ulrich tailors the experience to meet needs for all degrees of skill.

"The beginners will definitely benefit from the workshop, but I always help the more advanced get something out of it also," Ulrich said. "I lead many photo trips and always find a wide range of levels."

Ulrich said participants do not need to bring their photographic equipment unless they need an explanation about some aspect of their equipment.

Topics include a brief review of the principles of photography, relationships between shutter and aperture settings, fundamental elements of composition, use and timing of fill-in flash, digital versus film photography, techniques of close-up photography, and a brief discussion of slide etiquette, the photography business and marketing.

Ulrich grew up in South Chicago, graduated with a degree in biology from Southern Illinois University and taught for four years before launching his career as a freelance photographer. He has supported himself with nature photography for the past 29 years.

His library of more than 300,000 transparencies includes birds and mammals from all over the world. His photographs have been featured in publications such as National Wildlife, Audubon, National Geographic, Montana Outdoors and Life.

He has published six nature books, including Mammals of the Rockies, Birds of the Northern Rockies, Once Upon a Frame and his 2002 release, Photo Pantanal. Dr. William E. Hawkins, GCRL executive director, said Ulrich brings the scientific and artistic worlds together.

"Tom earns his living photographing wildlife all over the world," Hawkins sad. "He is an outstanding observer and a biologist. His approach to photography is to capture his subjects exhibiting their natural behavior."

The GCRL is home to the university's Department of Coastal Sciences, the Center for Fisheries Research and Development, and the Gulf Coast Geospatial Center. The J.L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium is also a unit of the laboratory. The GCRL is part of the Southern Miss College of Science and Technology. For more information, call the laboratory at (228) 872-4200.

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