Georgia Landscape Portrait Photographer | Mary Buck
Fisheye Connect is excited to spotlight landscape and portrait Photographer Mary Buck! Mary is the Owner and Photography Instructor for Studio 2.8 Lightscapes Learning Center in Duluth. Mary started her photography journey when she was just 18 years old as an amateur photographer. She was inspired by her brother who was a professional photographer. She worked in corporate life until 1997 when she decided to become a portrait photographer and open up a portrait studio in Duluth, Georgia called Lightscapes Photographic Artwork.
In 2003, she started to teach photography classes to just a handful of photographers. Fourteen years later, she has had the privilege of teaching over 1,000 students basic to advanced photography skills. Her unique style of teaching is hands-on and step by step and has helped so many new photographers learn how to use their digital camera. In 2014 she started an online course “How to Take Creative Control of Your SLR Camera”.
As a portrait photographer, Mary has operated her portrait studio in Duluth for the past twenty-one years and specializes in headshots and family portraits. Her studio was just voted as one of the Top Twenty Portrait Studios in Atlanta. She is passionate about photography whether teaching others, or just being behind the camera shooting.
In order to teach someone how to use their digital SLR camera, you first have to learn photography. This is where camera manuals go wrong. Manuals instruct which buttons to push but don’t tell you why. Manuals also assume one knows photography. The Immersion method teaches the basic building blocks of photography on the first day. Once that is understood, you can learn how to use a digital SLR camera, as a tool, to take a picture. Mary has been teaching beginner photography classes to students for the past 7 ½ years. Most students find the four hour class to be an overload of information and many forget what they have learned within the first month. That is why Mary has decided to change gears from teaching a four hour class which only skims the basics of photography to a full three days of immersion.
In the three day workshop you will learn photography by listening, doing and absorbing with repetitive activities. You will be challenged on an hourly basis to use what you have learned and to learn new skills based on what you have previously learned. Each day will consist of hands-on learning in an environment that will vary from sunrise to sunset. Students will have the opportunity to photograph landscapes, waterfalls, flowers, people and wildlife in a structured, non-competitive workshop. The goal is to strengthen and maintain the learning process with a non-stop flow of photography for three full days.
Mary also offers photography workshops in Cuba, and has made two trips to Cuba within 3 months. This is what she has to say about her experience there: “What I love most about Cuba is its color palette of pastels bathed in the glow of the soft, tropical light. Classic old cars are found everywhere on the city streets. The Spanish architecture is a perfect backdrop for photographing the people and cars. The photo opts are endless with the variety of textures and hues. It is truly a photographer’s paradise in a total out-of-the-box experience.” All skill levels are invited to the workshop, and she is eager to teach others how to improve their photography skills on this tropical island!
