Farmington Photographer's Work on Display

Andrew Buck’s photography is classic in many ways. There’s multiple takes on iconic human-inspired landscapes, decades of experience and textures that often seem to leap off the print. He focuses on black and white images, some 35 of which are now on display at Gallery on the Green as part of Andrew Buck: Four Decades of Photography.

“It’s photography in such a rich, classic sense,” said A. Walter Kendra, president of the Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Fund, which is sponsoring the exhibit and tonight’s artist's talk and opening reception. “He just has a fabulous eye.”

The Farmington photographer has developed that skill since he was 7, when his father gave him a brownie camera.

At Syracuse University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that love of photography blossomed. He studied architecture before moving over to journalism so he could take photography courses. He eventually switched to art and music history but still spent some time as an architectural photographer and stayed involved in other efforts and was on the founding board of Light Work, a non-profit photography organization.

A few years later an accident that left him in a wheelchair only very briefly discouraged the interest.

“I didn’t think I would do any work again but I figured out how I could do it,” he said.

In ensuing years he became an IT Computer Programmer and there are some gaps in the work, mostly due to lack of money and resources during those years. In the late 1980s, however, he once again became serious about photography.

Buck also works in series of images, for example taking numerous tobacco images at the O.J. Thrall Farm in Windsor.

Several of those images are part of the show, including two 360-degree panoramas shot with a specialized rotating camera.

Also included in the show are several images of the Farmington River.

The images are exclusively black and white. Buck said he admires the color work of many photographers but has done little himself.

“For me, color just gets in the way,” he said.

The exhibition, Andrew Buck: Four Decades of Photography will run from Friday, April 20, through Sunday, May 20, 2012 with a gallery talk by the artist at 5 p.m. and an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 21. The night will also include a celebration of the gallery's new handicapped accessible ramp. 

Cecil Adams and Walter Kendra curated the show. The Gallery on the Green, Connecticut's oldest existing artists' guild, is located at the corner of Dowd Avenue and Albany Turnpike (Route 44) in Canton. 

The show is the annual Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Invitational Exhibition sponsored by The Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Fund, Inc. The Fund, incorporated in 2003, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the fine and performing arts. Donations to the Fund, including employer matching gifts, may be sent to MSMAF, Inc., c/o Collinsville Savings Society, P. O. Box 197, Collinsville, CT 06019.  For further information about the Fund, contact MSMAF, Inc., 16 South St., Collinsville, CT 06019, or telephone 860 693 2762, or e-mail awkendra@yahoo.com.