Register for Photography Workshop

Carnivorous Plants Up Close:
Macro Photography in the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden

Join us on Thursday, August 11th, at 7 p.m. for a Zoom presentation with nature photographer Tom Astle. Tom has traveled the world with his camera, but for four months in 2021 work brought him to Wilmington. Every Sunday morning starting the week after he arrived, Tom visited the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden and photographed many of the beautiful and fascinating plants and tiny creatures in this small but amazingly biodiverse place.

A carnivorous plant bog might seem like a bad place to be a bug, but in fact the garden supports a thriving ecosystem of small creatures. Using his own closeup photos, Tom will share what he’s learned about their natural histories. He’ll also share photography tips and tricks, with an emphasis on the particular challenges of macro shooting. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A. The workshop is open to all ages and photography experience levels, from smartphone users to people with DSLR or mirrorless cameras — or simply to anyone who wants to take a closer look at life in one of Wilmington’s true hidden gems.

Photographer Tom Astle grew up in Montana, where he spent every possible moment outdoors. His first close-up lens was a magnifying glass his grandmother had given him, which he taped to the front of a used 35 mm film camera. His photo equipment has improved somewhat since then, but his goal has remained the same — to capture portraits of nature, especially the small and too-often-overlooked creatures around us. His passion for macro photography has taken him to Borneo, Belize, the Peruvian Amazon, Ecuador’s cloud forests, Mozambique, and Madagascar, but much of his work centers on his original and current home states of Montana and California — or often, simply the small rectangle of his suburban Los Angeles backyard. Tom’s photographs have appeared in a number of publications and books; more of his work is on his website, tomastlephotography.com. You can find him on Twitter (and to a lesser extent on Instagram) @tjalamont. In case his fancy macro lens breaks, he still has the magnifying glass.