August at Maser Gallery: “Natural Beauty: Birds, Color and Light” Photography by Ida Little

Photography by Ida Little will be on display at the Maser Gallery at Falmouth Community Television from August 5th through August 30, 2012. Most pieces for sale.

Ida Little grew up in the 50s in south Georgia, playing in the woods, attending schools where many of the kids did not wear shoes, and went on to graduate from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland with a B.A. in German. Her father was a doctor and had urged her to study the language so that she could take advantage of Junior Year Abroad, which she did, in Munich, Germany. While in Baltimore, Ida took courses in photography at the Maryland Institute of Art, getting the basics of photography and realizing an affinity for capturing images that moved her. Ida explains, “From the time I started using a camera in my late teens, I have felt pleasure in seeing the effects of light on a scene and making an image in the camera that reflects my heightened sense of pleasure.”

Ida realized a passion for travel and exploration when she traveled overland from Germany to Afghanistan during her year abroad in college. After graduating, she met her husband, Michael Walsh, and within a year the pair took off in an old wooden sailboat for the West Indies via Bermuda. Needing cash to fund these adventures, Ida began writing for boating magazines, illustrating the articles with her photographs. For the next thirty years the two lived and cruised aboard a variety of shoal draft boats that they could easily beach. The couple wrote a book about their experiences and what they had learned, called Beachcruising and Coastal Camping, illustrated with Ida’s photographs.

Ida attended workshops at the Maine Photographic Workshops (Maine Media Workshops College now). A teacher from the Smithsonian grounded her in the basics of exposure and color in one course, helping her understand her own tools. Another teacher, the nature photographer Gary Braasch, taught Ida how to accomplish with her vision with images: first the tools, then how to use them well. In her mind, Ida still refers to Brassch’s book, Patterns in Nature, when she looks through her viewfinder.

With the advent of digital photography Ida started printing her images. Last summer, 2011, Ida had her first gallery show at the Cataumet Arts Center. She also had pieces in the Maser Gallery summer and holiday art auctions last year. Some of the bird photographs in this August Maser Gallery show have been Juried into the Falmouth Art Center.

Maser Gallery Exhibit Hours: Sunday & Monday, 2-10 p.m.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10 -10 p.m., Friday 10-6 p.m.