Clyde Butcher show in New Jersey

2-3 years ago I took a one-day lecture/workshop with Clyde Butcher which included his demo'ing how he uses Photoshop. It was a very rudimentary skill level. Maybe his PS skills have greatly improved since then, but can't imagine a PS DVD by him. His darkroom at Venice is much larger than his Big Cypress setup, and its very impressive to see how he can make such large prints. The gallery at Big Cypress forces you to get up close to the big prints which, as another has said, is how he wishes his prints to be viewed. Some complain about his overblown highlights, and one can see the loss of detail on the large prints especially when he has used tri-x vs t-max100. But I think his importance is in showing the beauty of the "swamps" of Florida - after-all Florida drained of its water is just another suburbia.

t_nunn said:

Actually he feels that you should stand only a couple of feet away from his large prints. His reasoning is that when you stand that close you feel like you're there.

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I know, but it was still disconcerting. I had two other LF photographer friends with me and they felt the same way. Actually, in most of the prints the highlights were all blown out and did not work when viewing closeup..EC

BTW, The show has been extended until the end of January. And...
The price of his prints has been reduced for a short time only...

I guess even with a big name digital is not selling that well.

eclarke said:

He showed in Wausau, Wi a couple years ago but the room was so narrow that you could not get farther away than about 4 feet from the prints. It was all wide angle work about 50x60" and it made one dizzy to look at it. His prints need a big room...EC

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I thought that show was outstanding and inspirational. I had to go shoot some film the next day.

On walking into the gallery, I saw a display of very nice color panorama photos. I can't remember the photographer, but very well done inkjet prints. Then you see "the real thing" Cyde Butcher enormous ULF B&W fiber prints. Unbelievable. Walking back through the color inkjet prints, I thought they looked like third world postage stamps by comparison.

I can understand the attraction of digital output for prints of that size, billboards really. But it is disappointing. I would like to see some side-by-side as I imagine I would prefer the traditional prints.