is pleased to launch it’s on line booking system.
You can now book and pay on line for any of our workshops and features of the 2011 Grampians Wildlife Arts Festival.
If you wish to become a member and support GWAS you can also do this on line.
Simply click wherever you see this button
Renowned orchid artist Gary Backhouse owes his Grandmother some credit.
According to Gary, it was his Grandmother who first stirred his interest in orchids when he inherited some cymbidium orchids from her many years ago.
That, along with his own curiosity in nature, including the local tadpoles, frogs and snakes he collected from the swamp in the bushland behind the house he grew up in, in Rural Bulleen.
From looking after these first orchids, his passion grew to discovering orchids in the wild and documenting these.
Having no formal training in photography, Gary set about learning how the SLR camera worked so he could capture what he saw in the field.
“I am a self taught photographer, and in the days before digital cameras were introduced, we just bought a camera, did the point and shoot and then had to wait anxiously for a few weeks to view the slides,” said Gary.
“Digital cameras have changed all this, and in my book, “The Orchids of Victoria” which I co-authored with my friend, Jeffrey Jeanes, we shared this role.”
Last year, Gary visited picturesque Crete in Greece, where he studied an extensive number of terrestrial orchids, along with wild tulips, poppies and lilies.
Over the past 30 years on his trips throughout Australia, Gary has discovered around six previously un-described orchid species.
These are now named by the location in which they were found or by some diagnostic feature of the orchid such as colour.
As part of the 2011 Grampians Wildlife Arts Festival in Halls Gap, Gary will be giving a presentation to participants on Wednesday 31 August, as well as a public lecture on Friday 2 September.
For more information on the Festival or to attend one of Gary’s presentations, please contact Grampians Wildlife Arts Society President Glenda Lewin on 0409423827 or email glenda_l@gwas.org.au.
