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| by Frances Chamberlain Garry Camp Burdick has left behind a 45-year career as a free-lance photographer, but there are still parts of this work that he wants to share with other people. Although he no longer works as a professional photographer, and has no intentions of going back to it, he spends a couple days a week teaching Introduction to Photography and Color Photography at WestConn, and he has also mounted an exhibit of his portraits of Norman Rockwell at Wachovia Bank in Heritage Village. "There wasn't anything that I didn't photograph," Burdick recalled from his new Heritage Village study. ."I worked for the Famous Artists School in Westport, helping with photographs for the texts. I lunched with Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, and after I met Norman Rockwell at the school, an art director got me a job with the Wall St. Journal to photograph the famous painter." That was in 1968. Fifteen years ago, Burdick took the negatives out again and began to make prints. During the month of September these prints will be on display at Wachovia during normal banking hours. A guest book is available in the bank for anyone who wants to make comments. Not only will the Rockwell portraits hang in Wachovia this month, the National Portrait Gallery has selected an image to be part of its "Adopt a Portrait" program. This allows the photograph to be used in exhibitions, public programs, research, publications and a variety of educational and museum related uses. The galleries are currently undergoing renovation and will be open to the public again in July, 2006. Burdick's customers ranged from big clients like IBM, Bristol Myers and Winchester Rifles to a very few private weddings. "I would do only black and white, put the photos in a wooden box, mounted on illustration board," he said. "Only art students would hire me to do a wedding like that." In the past five years, he noted, this photojournalistic style is more common in wedding photography. Likewise, his avante garde approach to a WestConn yearbook produced a truly unusual keepsake, but he was never hired to do another yearbook. Through that job, in 1963, he earned $1,500, just enough to buy a brand new VW. Burdick studied at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, earning a BA in Photography, and went to New York where he worked for Seventeen. "We didn't like that much and I hated the subway to Flushing," he said. He had grown up in the Danbury area and so he quickly retreated to Brookfield, where he established his studio and lived until coming to Heritage Village about four months ago. |
 Garry Camp Burdick at his Heritage Village condo Photo by Frances Chamberlain
"Norman Rockwell never really posed for me in the traditional way; he was a
picture in himself. His body balanced or unbalanced was a song of animation,
eyes twinkling or concerned, hands floating in time with gestures, all this
would settle into the perfect photograph.
The famous Norman Rockwell in his Stockbridge, Mass. studio -- captured at
work by photographer Garry Cam p Burdick. |
| "The night we got here," he said, "we were very happy. How many rooms do you
need? I had a pool and never enjoyed it as much as I do here. There are so
many advantages to being here. I left a beautiful library to the people who
bought my house, a mom who was home schooling her children. I belong to the
Winship Bam Woodworking Club and built a box for my mini-Weber. Next year I
want to plant a garden, and I've joined the Mac club. Brenda, my
wife, is simply relaxing since her arrival. "She was imply in retail and she's retired now," he said. In addition to all these activities, Burdick said he is writing "the Great American Novel." "I'm having the best time writing it," he said. "It's more interesting than crosswords, and I might self publish.." He gains inspiration from the Writers Group that meets weekly in the Meeting House. Before he moved to the Village Burdick said he sold all his photo equipment and got one camera to keep, plus two others - a 2 1/4 and a 4 x 5. "But I don't think I'll ever take them out of the box," he said. "I sold all my lights and got a refrigerator with an icemaker." Burdick has exhibited his work at the Bridgewater Library and at the University of New Haven. Sharing his work, and expertise still comes naturally to him, even though he has left his own studio and business far behind. "You've got to find that light, that great light, and bring your person to it," he said. "Get Clint Eastwood there, blow smoke into it, and you've got it. My favorite picture was of Dr. and Mrs. Pratt, from the Eliot Pratt Center in New Milford. I took them down cellar and the light came in the window and bathed their faces. I want to introduce all my students to that light." |