Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s new exhibition, “Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes,” will open Saturday, May 31 and remain on view through August 17. The opening reception on May 31 is from 6 to 8 pm and is open to the public.
“Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes” presents the recent work of the Essex-based photographer. These stunning and evocative black and white photographs were taken on Harron’s 2007 trip to Morocco. Harron and his French-born wife, Colette, as translator, went to Morocco for three weeks for the sole purpose of photographing the stark and beautiful environment. Most of their days consisted of rising early and going into the desert to shoot the landscape. Harron takes relatively few shots of any given scene. He prefers, instead, to spend his time setting up the precise shot to get his final image.
Born in Bermuda, Harron’s roots are in still photography and he started his career at the age of 9 when he received a camera and developing kit that he put to immediate use. Despite this early start in photography, Harron’s background is actually in theater and film production. In New York, he studied with Uta Hagen, as well as Lee Strasbourg in The Director’s Unit and he produced with Edward Albee.
Harron was the cinematographer on the antiwar documentaries Anti-War Music Festival featuring Jimi Hendrix, among other major rock stars, in Madison Square Garden in the late 1960s and Listen America , as well as the documentary Raoni featuring Marlon Brando.
Harron returned to his first love of black and white still photography in the late 1980s. His work has been shown in the United States, as well as internationally. Harron is represented in several books, including Effektiv Visuell Kommunication , published in Sweden in 2007, with the English version due in 2008.
The photographs on view in “Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes” present the rugged yet dazzling landscape of Northern Africa. The images range from the almost abstract to “posed” desert scenes. In this exhibit, the viewer will take a visual journey, following in Harron’s footsteps in Morocco.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum is at 625 Williams Street. For information, 860-443-2545 or www.lymanallyn.org .
