Roger Busch threw his energy into photography too late to have a shot at joining Margaret Bourke-White as the lone Fairfield County inductee to the International Photography Hall of Fame.
Too bad Busch waited as long as he did ”“ it took the retired accountant just three years to tally the top score in the a yearlong competition for color pictures sponsored by the Photography Club of Lower Fairfield County.
It is anybody”™s guess what the Greenwich resident could have accomplished had he taken up art in earnest in his youth, given his achievements in what turned out to be his lifelong hobby ”“ the discus.
Learning the sport in Milburn, N.J., where he grew up, Busch”™s prowess in the sport contributed to an undefeated record for Colgate University”™s track team. The program has since established the Roger Busch Thrower Award.
He left Colgate for a career in accounting and finance ”“ before retiring, Busch was chief financial officer of The Paddington Corp., a premium liquor importer that is now part of Norwalk-based Diageo USA.
Busch never tossed the sport aside, and continues to excel. Last year he was the over-65 silver medalist at the USA Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Charlotte, N.C., with a throw of 45.87 meters (David Montieth, a Ridgefield resident who was the only other contestant from Fairfield County, won the high jump in the over-60 category by clearing 1.55 meters).
No shame in the silver ”“ U.S. over-65 discus champion Dick Cochran of Missouri won a bronze medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
If the discus thrower”™s pose is the classic image depicting track and field events, these days Busch is equally observed capturing images on his point-and-shoot Canon and getting them onto storage disks.
Busch decided to try his hand at photography three years ago after receiving a 6-megapixel digital camera for his birthday. He joined the Photography Club of Lower Fairfield County (PCLFC ”“ or “phoclulofaco,” his affectionate nickname for the group); for the first six months he was a wallflower, content merely to sponge up information.
Other local clubs include the Candlewood Camera Club in Danbury, the Greater Bridgeport Camera Club and the Norwalk Camera Club.
“The best move I made after I got the camera was to join the camera club,” Busch said. “That gave me an outlet ”“ it”™s one thing to take the pictures, but you”™ve got to find a way to get them out there in front of people.”
In just his third year in the club, he accumulated the most points in two of eight yearlong PCLFC competitions, including color-print assigned subjects, the most vigorously contested category.
Busch was accepted as an exhibitor in the Art to the Avenue show sponsored in May by the Greenwich Arts Council.
“It”™s an important part of my life now ”“ in a way it has changed my identity,” Busch said. “I am always looking at the quality of the light wherever I am. People ask me where I shoot, and I tell them I always shoot where the light is good.”
Busch is not alone in his newfound obsession with light ”“ his wife, Andrea, an anesthesiologist by trade, moonlights as a stained-glass window artist.
Does he ever wish he could turn back the clock, erase his Rutgers University MBA and CPA, and pursue full time the career path of Margaret Bourke-White, who grew up 10 miles north of Busch”™s hometown before settling in Darien later in life?
As Life magazine”™s first female staff photographer, Bourke-White earned the nickname “Maggie the Indestructible” by chronicling the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II; Gen. George Patton”™s march through North Africa and Europe; and Gandhi.
“I think it”™s a nice hobby,” Busch mused, “but it”™s very difficult to make a living at it.”
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