BUCKHANNON – A new photo exhibit featuring landscapes throughout West Virginia is now on display at the Colonial Theater gallery on Main Street in Buckhannon.
The photos were taken by members of the Buckhannon-Upshur Camera Club, including Charmagne Ayotte, Karl Boone, Sharon Boone, Vickie Clutter, Kilsong Cox, Kathy Gregg, Stephen Hinzman, Gary McCoy, Sandra Miller, Steven Minardi and Al Tucker.
Carrie Perry, Director of Marketing for ART26201, said the gallery will be open to the public on May 8 from 4 to 8 p.m. and during the Strawberry Festival, May 14-15, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. It will also be open May 21-22 and May 28-29 from 4 to 8 p.m. each day.
“We discussed a theme for the show, and we landed on landscapes,” Perry said. “Every single one of these pictures are West Virginia scenes. We are having everyone pick their very favorite and put in their votes, and whoever wins is going to win our fabulous ART26201 ribbon.”
Charmagne Ayotte has two photos featured in the exhibit.
“I’ve enjoyed taking pictures since I was a kid,” she said. “I recently retired, so I dove into it a little bit deeper. It’s always been my passion for as long as I can remember, so every chance I get I’m taking pictures. I’m actually from the Clarksburg area, but I joined the club because it’s a great group of people.”
Ayotte enjoys photographing nature in general, not just landscapes.
“I’ll take pictures of anything,” she said. “The bird migration right now is really, really strong, so as the birds are flying through, I love to get that scene.”
Fellow Buckhannon-Upshur Camera Club member Vickie Clutter also has two photos in the exhibit. She’s been interested in photography for 20 years and involved with the camera club for about five years.
“I started out taking pictures of nature when I got my first digital camera, so that was my first niche, and then I eventually went to take portraits of high school seniors,” Clutter said. “That was very demanding, so as I’m getting older, I found it much easier to just stick with nature and landscapes. I like to go out on my own and do my own thing. I really did enjoy the senior portraits when I was doing that, because they’re so creative and they helped bring out the creative juices as well.”
She said the favorite picture she took in the exhibit is called ‘Morning on the Old Farm.’
“It was actually taken on my own farm,” Clutter said. “It’s no longer a working farm — in generations past it was, and there is an old building that sits out by itself with a hay rake. In the different seasons, it just becomes so different. Every month you go up there and look at it, and there is different lighting, different times of day or different seasons. I have some pictures I took in the wintertime as well, and it’s like bringing the past back to life.”
