Yet Buff's approach to nature and its awesome grandeur differed in specific painterly directions from the plein aire style which dominated the local scene. Instead of the interplay between light and color, a bright, bold palette appears. Instead of referencing to Postimpressionism, a tendency toward abstraction emerges. Buff's palette has the boldness of the fauves but it is decidedly Southwestern, influenced without a doubt by the strong colors of the landscape itself and more subtly, by the turquoises, sienna browns and yellows associated with a Native American aesthetic. There is a strong tendency toward an architectural spatial vision.
Cliffs resemble skyscrapers and their layers of strata become foundations.
Geometric in his compositions, he even explored a spatial dichotomy, often dividing the canvas in two, creating two views, two corresponding segments of the same vision. Two bi-lateral influences come to mind in looking at Buff's works. One is the woodblock prints associated with the Jungendstil and Art Nouveau movements in Europe, and the Japanese woodblock. The stark contrasts and the rectilinearity of the works is almost draftsmanlike in approach. In Mountains by the Lakeside those parallels are clearly evident in the treatment of the white mountains, the lake and the trees.