Carol Stream photographer wins kudos

Graue Mill always has held a place in Ray Vegter's heart.

His mom's family helped settle Oak Brook and he grew up along Harger Road, maybe four miles as the crow flies from the iconic mill that once served as a safe house along the Underground Railroad.

He remembers spending time around the museum as a kid, including once when he and his brothers put a boat into Salt Creek to float down to the mill only to discover they had to paddle against the current to get back home.

But time has a way of taking us away from places we enjoy, and it probably had been more than 30 years since Vegter, who now lives in Carol Stream, made it back to the mill operated by the DuPage Forest Preserve District.

Vegter says he and his wife, Cindy, finally took a ride to Oak Brook earlier this year and found themselves walking around the grounds and many of those memories came pouring back.

“It was like I was a big kid when I was there,” he says.

Among the things that immediately captured his attention was the huge water wheel turning slowly along the side of the historic mill.

“That wheel is just something that always fascinated me,” he says.

Vegter pulled out his trusty Canon 7D and tried to capture the dripping water and the algae and moss growing on the wheel. He says he took about 20 images at different speeds trying to capture just the right one.

The result was a photograph that won first place in the Daily Herald's November Photo Finish contest. For his efforts, Vegter will receive a $50 gift certificate from PJ's Camera in Pickwick Place Plaza, 662 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn.

DuPage photographer Tanit Jarusan, who helped judge the contest, said he was particularly struck by the composition and almost abstract look of the image. It is, he says, the kind of picture you frame and hang on your wall.

It's the first time Vegter has won our monthly competition, but not the first time he's had one of his pictures appear in our Neighbor section. A shot he captured in his own backyard was one of our weekly winners about two years ago.

The 52-year-old truck driver says he started taking pictures when he was around 18, but didn't get really serious about it until roughly 15 years ago. He has three cameras two digital and one film and carries one with him wherever he goes, except when he's working.

“I'm notorious for taking over 400 pictures from a family vacation,” he says.

That passion for capturing important moments may very well be in his genes.

“I remember going on family vacations,” he says, “and somebody always had a camera. We always had a record of our family vacations.”

He tried to pass that idea down to his own three children and it seems to have worked.

“My kids now are the same way,” he says. “They love to document where they've been.”

Vegter says he knows some prefer video, but he remains a fan of still photography.

He even has his own website MyPieceOfHeavenPhoto.com where he shares some of his images with others. His own favorite: a hummingbird moth flying up to a honeysuckle flower.

“I'd much rather capture a moment in time than capture it in video,” he says. “It stirs more emotion.”