CLYDE BUTCHER

Clyde Butcher is an American photographer born in Missouri in 1942. He first started photography due to it being an alternative to drawing as he graduated with a degree in architecture but found that he was unable to draw designs. As a result, Butcher used photography to present his architectural models rather than in drawings.

It was not until he saw an Ansel Adams exhibit at Yosemite national park that Butcher began photographing the landscape due to the fact he was so impressed by Adam's images. He made the transition from architecture to photography fully in 1970 where he began exhibiting his landscape images. A year later, Butcher started his own business selling his images to stores as wall décor. This meant that he started producing colour images to make his photographs more marketable and commercial.

Butcher's decision to revert back to using black and white film came in 1986 after his son was tragically killed in a car accident. After suffering this loss, Butcher spent a lot of time in the Big Cypress National Preserve, where the connection to nature helped him come to terms with the death. He wanted to fully move away from colour so destroyed all of his photography taken on colour film and decided to exclusively use black and white film, producing images for which he is most well known for.

Butcher is an established conservationist, as well as a photographer, and has produced award winning documentaries on the importance of the environment. Through his photography, Butcher aims to bring awareness to the public view of the indispensable beauty of the natural world. This is what I like about his work and is why I am using him as an influence to my project as the idea of using photography as a way of drawing attention to environmental issues is something I want to incorperate.

STUDIO C-14: 1 HOUR PHOTO PODCAST 

Storytelling with Photography: An Interview with Clyde Butcher

He is known as the Ansel Adams of the Everglades, due to the similarity between their images, highlighting the importance and the extent of the influence which Adams had on his work. From a young age, Butcher had a love of the outdoors which is a common theme with landscape photographers. This means that they produce good images due to the passion and familiarity with the natural environment.

Butcher believes that black and white images are better as he feels as if colour is too distracting and finds it easier to tell the story of a landscape in black and white. When shooting a landscape in colour, this takes away from the texture and forms of the image but in black and white, a oneness is created with nature. What Butcher means by this is that everything is of the same importance when the image is in black and white, rather than the most colourful elements being prioritised visually.

When working in a landscape, Butcher will spend days or months at a time photographing one spot as the landscape is so volatile and is constantly changing from day to day. In order to photograph something special, it is important to spend time in the environment as you cannot always rely on luck to get a good image. 

Butcher has never made a contact sheet and instead with go through the negatives and make prints to decide if the image is working. This is because he normally does not take many pictures for example, he spent 30 days in Cuba and only took 65 prints with 55 making it into the book. This highlights his meticulous selectivity when considering images shown by the fact that he "won't take a picture unless it's good." In a day, the maximum amount of photographs he will take is usually 3. Working in film is different to digital due to how careful you have to be to not waste film. Therefore, I am still going to make contact sheets as this is useful for me to evaluate multiple images from one shoot as this helps me to narrow down and select working images.

Does not always have a plan for specific shot in mind when going out on location but will keep two things in mind: composition and light. He also uses the technique Adams used of visualisation by not forcing the shot and instead lets the image speaks to him.

THE EVERGLADES

The Everglades is Clyde Butcher's most recent photobook which is a collection of 98 large black and white photographs taken from 1986 to 2019. This extensive range of photographs capture the beauty of the Florida Everglades, a region of wetlands which thousands of different plants and species call home. With this collection, Butcher aims to reverse the narrative made popular by Holywood of the swamps being a place of horror, into one of curiosity and grace. In addition to this, he hopes that his images will inspire people to form a deeper connection to Earth so that a sense of stewardship is instilled into people, leading to the protection and restoration of the already damaged environment.

"It is my hope that the vision I give to you of the Everglades will inspire you to love and protect it for generations to come" - Clyde Butcher

One thing that is notable about this image is the panoramic effect that is produced by the image being much larger in length than it is in width. This creates an immersive effect for the viewer and allows them to experience the landscape as Butcher would have done when taking the photograph. Furthermore, it allows every small detail to be emphasised, like the detail in the sky or the mist covering the horizon, as this would have been lost or not as effective if it was produced as a smaller, standard size image. This creates a very striking scene and I think that it would look particularly effective if printed out as a large print, standing alone so that it becomes even more enveloping. When photographing the dense, detailed environment of the Everglades, Butcher would often use a wide angle lens to enable him to capture all the different subjects and details into one image and produce this large-scale, impressive representation of the landscape.

I think that this is a highly effective technique to portray the landscape and is something that I would look to do within my own work. I could do this by experimenting with a wide angle lens to increase the amount of the image that is in view and to achieve the large depth of field. Furthermore, I could look into making a composite image by taking two different angles and putting them together to make one, larger image.

This image is an example of Butcher's use of reflections to make the landscape more imposing and stretching. Adding to this, the reflection in the water creates an almost three dimensional effect, furthering the depth of the image. It fits in with the aim of thi project as it conveys the beauty of the Everglades and if the water was not as clean and crisp, then the striking reflection would not be able to be achieved so it is important that the preservation of this area is maintained.

I think that the tonal range achieved provides a nice contrast between the individual elements so that they stand out on their own but also work with other elements to form the whole image of the landscape. The sharpness achieved is something which I would like to emulate within my own images, coupled with the simple composition to create the overall striking effect.