Pete Myers Photography: Up Close and Personal with the Birds of Albemarle County

The Batesville Market is pleased to have photographer and ornithologist, Pete Myers, as our featured September artist. Starting at 1:00 pm, you’ll be able to meet Pete and view his incredible photographs of birds taken in Albemarle County, some literally in Pete’s own backyard. At 2:30 pm, Pete will give a presentation, “Up Close and Personal with the Birds of Albemarle County.”

About the artist

“My weapons of choice are stealth, patience and anticipation. This often means sitting with one bird for hours, photographing hundreds of variations of a pose and then sifting through them to find the one image that captures the bird’s essence. I used to think that compelling nature photography could only be undertaken in remote places. But one evening in an Albemarle winter 10 years ago I saw a white-throated sparrow lit magically in the evening sun, and I was entranced by the quality of the light. It opened my eyes to things I had never seen before. Thus almost all the images in this exhibit are from Albemarle County, many from my home near White Hall.” — Pete Myers

Birds were an early love for Pete growing up throughout Mexico and Central and South America. His research on shorebirds earned him a Ph.D. from Berkeley and was followed by positions with the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and the National Audubon Society. Interested in the connections between bird conservation and human behavior, he served as Director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation and became an expert in endocrine disrupting chemicals. He is the founder and Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences (www.ehn.org), but escapes his day job to capture birds using digital photography.