I grew up in Atlanta. I have lived in Southwest Florida for most of my life. In the early 80s I inherited an old camera and started stalking birds to capture them on film. I became a serious avian photographer. I entered a photograph into the Ding Darling annual photography exhibit. It won first place. A couple of years later I entered again and won again.

I began making nature landscapes. A long admirer of the work of Ansel Adams, I fell in love with black and white photography. It was sometimes difficult to find landscapes undisturbed by the encroachments of our rapidly urbanizing area, so I began to include the works of man in my photographs. A favorite, of course, is the Sanibel Lighthouse.

The Great Recession stalled my business as a consulting engineer. I went to work for a nationwide portrait company. It was standardized photography with way too much emphasis on selling. So, then I set up my own portrait studio in an empty space in my engineering office for a while.

I am currently a member of the Tower Gallery Artists’ Cooperative and exhibit my photographs in the Tower Gallery on Sanibel.

“After years of being primarily an avian photographer I gradually evolved into capturing landscapes There are no great mountain scenes, waterfalls, or the like, here in southwest Florida. I use the light, the sky and clouds, the water and reflections to give the landscape character, to reveal the art of nature in the ever present works of humans. I began to see my photography as not just capturing a scene, but of making art from what I see around me.

I love being on the beach early in the morning, before the people arrive. I enjoy making minutes-long exposures in the predawn darkness and making street scenes by the light from lamp posts. And still, it’s a thrill to catch the dance of the reddish egret. I’ve been working more and more deeply in our urban areas, cityscapes, and have become fascinated to find the patterns, geometry, and sometimes abstruse images in our built environment.

Many of the photographs I make now are so different from the ones I made when I first started. It’s an ongoing journey, always with something different just ahead.”

Buck Ward, buckward.net

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

ARTWORK