Clyde Butcher's Black & White Photography

Member Joined: Oct 25, 2007 Posts: 22

[i]Clyde Butcher
black & white
Photography Artworks.....

Big Cypress Studio:
52388 Tamiami Trail
East Ochopee, Florida 34141
(239) 695-2428
(888) 999-9113
Email: beg @ clydebutcher.com

Venice Gallery & Studio:
237 Warfield Avenue
Venice, Florida 34285
(941) 486-0811 ~ fax (941) 412-3441
Toll Free (888) 999-9113
Email: info @ clydebutcher.com

A Great video of Clyde Butcher's Black and White Photography can be viewed at:
[url=http://wm.wtsp.gannett.edgestreams.net/news/200611/07/photography.wmv ]ClydeButcherPfotography[/url]

History of the Gallery
Clyde and Leon after they bought the propetry - 1992

Leon Whilden was born somewhere around 1914, he graduated high school in 1932 and went on with his education for two years of college at the University of Florida and then received a Music Scholarship to Peabody. When the war began, he joined the service and spent most of his time at the African front, and then in the Pacific. He found beauty in all the horror of war by getting interested in the different kinds of plants, flowers, and orchids at the places he was stationed. Many of these plants ebded up on the property he was to purchase in the Big Cypress.

In the 1950's Leon purchased 13 acres of property on the south side of the Tamiami Trail. which he called "Orchid Isles", and seven acres across the street on the north side of the Tamiami Trail. He worked as an engineer for the new Jetport that was being built mid-way between Miami and Naples on the Tamiami Trail, not far from the property that he had purchased. The Jetport was going to change everything. It was going to be the largest airport in the world and that was going to change aviation. It was going to stimulate development of a new community of 150,000 people, and that would change the demography of south Florida.

Purchasing "Orchid Isle" seemed like a good investment at the time, but conservationists were worried about the impact an airport of that size would have on the environment of the Everglades and Big Cypress. It would generate five million gallons of sewage and industrial wastes, and more than 25 tons of jet fuel pollutants each day. It would certainly change the face of the environment and a battle began to stop the jetport and to save the Everglades and Big Cypress from futher development.

When the battle was won by the conservationists, the area in which Leon lived became the Big Cypress National Preserve. After an angry fight with the National Park Service, Leon lost his seven acres on the north side, but was able to retain all thirteen acres on the south side of the road. He was lucky. The Park Service said that no one could retain anymore than three acres of land.

Leon went to court and proved that it took all thirteen acres of his land to produce his orchids, and without it, the Park Service was taking away his livelihood. However, the land was never going to "bloom". It would forever remain a peaceful piece of heaven. After the construction on the Jetport was shut down, Leon no longer had a job, so he decided to sell orchids to the tourists... and that's when his story really begins.

Photos To Inspire:
Clyde Butcher
by
Jerry Currier Dec. 1, 2007

December's "Photos to Inspire" features a photographer whose personel style is reminiscent of a great American photographic icon and yet is uniquely his own. He's a captivating personality whose outward appearance is reminiscent of another icon from the holiday season, although he doesn't own a sleigh of reindeer and his home is in a Florida swamp, not the North Pole. He consorts daily with alligators, snakes and mosquitoes while creating beautiful images of an environment that is endangered by human encroachment.... an environment he is dedicated to saving.

Landscape photographer Clyde Butcher is often compared to Ansel Adams because of his exquisitely crafted black-and-white images of the Florida Everglades; a comparison Clyde considers a compliment. However, Clyde is quick to point out that his images are about "spaces," whereas Adams' images are about "things".
Clyde describes his preferences for black-and-white images by stating, "Color is a duplication of nature, black-and-white is an interpretation." He suggests that most photographers have a preconceived notion of what they are going to photograph instead of letting the world come to them. By letting the world come to you, as a photographer, Clyde suggests that you will find what you are looking for, whatever it may be. The exclusion of people in his images is deliberate. He says by putting a person in an image disengages the viewers from the scene, assigning the viewers' space to that person. Clyde wants viewers to be fully engaged in the image he's created.

A personel tragedy changed Clyde's life forever. In 1986, his teenage son Ted, was killed when a drunken driver crashed into the car in which young Butcher was riding. Creating something positive out of something negative was Clyde's way of making something meaningful out of his son's life. By seeking solace in the Everglades, he realized that human encroachment could lead to the loss of this natural wonder just as easily. In recent years, Clyde has become a passionate preservationist. Realizing that human impact in the form of development was behind the loss of more and more of Florida's wetlands, he set a course aimed at making people realize that the loss of this magnificent and fragile environment with its unique natural beauty would be an enormous loss to future generations. Clyde's website (http://clydebutcher.com/journal.cfm?holdtype=129) offers a wealth of information about the man and his work as well as fascinating information about his 1,600 square foot darkroom.

His photographs of wild places are stately and dramatic, and his physical appearance recalls Ansel Adams's iconic mountain-man look. And Butcher shoots only with view cameras, ranging from 4x5" to 12x20". But unlike the meticulous Adams, with his lifelong emphasis on ultra-precise technique and pre-visualization, Butcher takes a different, more casual approach, at least in the field. He's more like a man out for a lark who just happens to be toting a really big camera... which he says he often uses almost like a point and shoot. The view camera as a point and shoot? This man clearly has an unsual take on things. He explains:

"When I'm in the open sun I don't use a light meter. Why would I? The Sun is a constant, about 93 million miles away. So I shoot at f45 and either 1/2 or 1 second, usually with an orange filter. This way I can concentrate on what I'm seeing... it's better than an automatic camera!" ("No batteries required," he adds.) He's interested in breaking down the barriers to good work. "The less you have to think, the better photographer you can become," Butcher adds. "People always ask me, 'What's the best time of day to shoot?': 'When you're breathing!' he says with a smile.

The Venice, Florida-based photographer, runs a flourishing B&W retail business from two Sunshine State galleries: he sells prints, publishes books and calendars and teaches. Butcher, however, has no time for the super serious techno-focused approach to B&W. For example, at the mere mention of characteristic curves, he says, "The only curve I like is on a woman. I sort of understand curves, but I don't care. If it's not a good picture, who cares what the curve is? A good picture will overcome any curve." (Characteristic curves, the provence of hard-core Zone System devotees, are S-curve graphs representing the negative density resulting from each exposure level.) He uses only (his own) standard film development times, eschewing contrast-altering plus and minus development times. "Simplify everything." he emphasizes.

His approach in the field is more like a time-pressed commercial photographer than that of Adams or Edward Weston, he says. The last pre-visualized photo he made was in 1983. He planned the image (of sea oats, sand, ocean and sun) and spent a week looking for the location, and another week waiting for the image and light to be just right. All that time paid off; he claims he's built at least one house with the profits from that shot, but wonders how many more great shots might have resulted if he'd just let two weeks worth of images come to him. Butcher believes photography should be fun, and, really big camera in hand, he sets out to have fun. He figures any angst can come in post production. (Butcher mostly prints in the darkroom. However, he is adept with Adobe Photoshop, as students at his Photoshop workshop at Cone Editions Press in Vermont, home of Piezography inkjet B&W printing, learned in June 2007. His Photoshop approach is, not surprisingly, all about keeping things as simple as possible.) Adams and Weston only had #2 and #3 paper, so they had to make their negatives fit that range... hence the Zone system, Butcher explains. With variable contrast paper (and, of course, Photoshop), the game has changed. "I say let's be hacks in the field," he chuckles, "and have fun... just look for the good light... and fake it in the darkroom. Light is always interesting... follow the light."

Museum exhibit to be traveling throughout the USA.....

Best known for his large format photographs of the Florida Everglades, Clyde Butcher has broadened his scope in this exhibit... 'Visionsof the Next Millennium' to include other areas of the United States.

"I want to show people that there is a unity between all undisturbed natural places... My hope is to educate and inspire... to let people know our land is a special place, and the way we take care of it determines the future quality of life for our society."

These words are a prelude for the thirty-seven remarkable images of nature's splendors that Clyde has so eloquently captured on black and white film, using his 8" x 10" view camera. The images range in size from 60" x 105" down to 40" x 60" and are printed on fiber base paper. Because of the large size of the photographs, the viewer's eye cannot take in the entire image in a single glance. And that is Clyde's aim. He want's the viewer to take time to experience the moment. As Clyde is fond of saying, "Most people are into the destination and not the journey." Thankfully, his journey has given us rare and rewarding views of what once was, and in many cases still exists, but only if we are concerned enough to preserve it for future generations.

Clyde's dream has come true!
Several years ago Clyde had a dream of creating an exhibit containing very large photographic images taken from all over the United States.

His hope is that it would "Show people that there is a unity between all natural places, and the way we take care of it determines the future quality of life for our society.

Millennium Message.....
"Every century and every millennium is born into a new agenda. Earlier periods of human history has been characterized by basic elements of prosperity: bronze, gold and steel. In more recent times, we rapidly pushed back frontiers of thought in spurts of human enterprise that define centuries as distinct eras:
17th Century was the age of exploration...
18th Century was the age of science...
19th Century was the age of industry...
20th Century was the age of technology...
21st Century ?

We often hear people describe the coming new age as an Information Age, but without content or connection, information has no use. I believe the coming age has more substance to it than "information." I believe it is the way we choose to use the information that will change our lives, and that choice will determine the future of our world.

If we are to survive as a healthy species, we are obliged to go forward into this new age with the preservation and restoration of the environment in the forefront of our thoughts. We must establish an ethic toward the earth that will penetrate the very soul of our existence. Unless we perceive our connection to nature in a deep and personal way, we will face a future of decline instead of prosperity. I believe the coming century will be one of the most active ecological centuries human history has ever seen, and that the Ecological Age will begin the momentum that will carry on into the millennium to create a healthy future for all mankind.

To bring a land ethic into reality, people with vision from all fields need to come together in a holistic manner to produce a creative momentum which will inspire society to 'walk a higher path' and, in doing so, establish a foundation on which future generations can stand. I believe that artists are vessels of inspiration that can convey this message. As an artist, I reach deep within myself in order to express an image which will touch another. Art is an intimate experience. It is with that intimate experience that I believe the artist has the power to transform, and bring a new insight into life.

Through their creations, artists have inspired society since the beginning of time. Two of the best known inspirations of our country are Thomas Moran and Ansel Adams. Thomas Moran painted Yellowstone, and it was his artistic vision that enabled Ferdinand Hayden to convince our government to save Yellowstone as our first National Park.

Ansel Adams used the power of his vision to bring Yosemite and its beauty into the public eye.... strengthening The Sierra Club and the activity of environmentalists to save the beauty of our land.

It is because of the power of the artist to touch the emotions of another, that I have encouraged all of my artist friends to become involved in transforming our society to view the earth as a spiritual place for which we are all responsible.

For my part, I am reaching out with my exhibit, Visions for the Next Millennium, to begin a new era based on an understanding of humanity's profound connection with nature. My images will be presented to the viewers with the goal of helping them see the beauty and sublime order of the natural world, both in great places like the Everglades and the Redwood Forests, as well as in lesser known urban parks and wild places.

I want to show people that there is a unity between all undisturbed natural places, whether the peak of a renowned mountain range, or a stream-bed in an urban watershed. My hope is to educate and inspire... to let people know our land is a special place, and the way we take care of it determines the future quality of life for our society."

Clyde Butcher............

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