Alicia Buccino’s Photography Is On View At Art Center

“Drawing with Light: A Photographic Study of the Elements of Art,” a show of photography by Alicia Buccino is on view in the Falmouth Art Center’s Sigel Gallery through November 30.

Ms. Buccino’s interest in photography started when she was 8 or 9 years old when she was given a Kodak Brownie camera. In college, she combined her interest in art and science with a major in the studio arts and incorporated her love of photography with printmaking, graphic design, painting, sculpture, drawing and art history.

The word photography originates from the Greek word for light (phötós) and drawing (graphé).

“It literally translates to ‘drawing with light,’” said Ms. Buccino. “Before the invention of modern-day photography that could permanently ‘fix’ an image on a surface, artists used various optical tools to project the exact likeness of objects, architecture and landscapes on a surface in order to draw the exact proportions and perspective.”

After the Brownie camera, Ms. Buccino’s second camera was a more sophisticated single-lens reflex film camera, and she learned to develop black and white film and print her own photographs.

This exhibition, Ms. Buccino said, represents the clarity of her vision in her travels locally, nationally and abroad shooting digital photographs with an Apple iPhone and Nikon DSLR.

For the show, she said she has selected images that illustrate the basic elements of art—line, color, texture, form, and space and also utilize the principles of perspective, balance, proportion, volume, rhythm and scale.

“I feel these images also represent how powerful and evocative photography can be in its purest and minimally manipulated form,” she said, adding that she does her compositions in the camera behind the lens with very few adjustments in the computer later.

“I learned this principle of visualizing the image in camera before shooting when I studied the Zone System, developed and mastered by Ansel Adams, and taught by his first assistant, John Sexton,” she said.

“With the use of film, all the ‘adjustments’ are done in advance with deliberate planning for exposure and development. With digital, it’s now done in camera, manually or automatically, and, post-shooting, on the computer using various photo editing software,” said Ms. Buccino, adding that when she takes photographs she is constantly assessing and evaluating the quality of the light because she considers it the most important element “and ultimate principle upon which all successful ‘drawings with light’ are possible.”

In addition to her photography, Ms. Buccino teaches children’s art classes at the center. She lives in North Falmouth.

An opening reception for “Drawing with Light: A Photographic Study of the Elements of Art,” will take place at the art center todayon Friday, November 5, from 4 to 6 PM. The art center’s Out of the Box! Fall Fundraiser, displaying more than 50 boxes, and the Creative Process exhibit are on view as well.

The Falmouth Art Center is at 137 Gifford Street in Falmouth.