clyde butcher - website visit

I have taken Clydes workshops and been to his swamp walks, To see and know Clyde he is a very easy going person who would share information in a instant. CLyde likes to use 8x10 to 12x20 cameras, He prints very large prints because he wants you to feel you are there. Feel that you are looking around at the area he is at, not just taking in a scene with a 16x20 print. To have a 4'x6' print on your wall is outstanding. everytime you go by it you feel you have to stop and check out the sites.

Also Clyde doesn't like computers, he doesn't handle his website and doesn't even return e-mails, he has Nikie his wife, and his daughter handle that.
P.S.
His darkroom iis 1200 sq feet. and owns 10 8x10 enlargers, and one copy camera/enlarger for the big suff. SO don't thinks he has gone digital.

P.S.S.
At one time Clyde did RC prints. He found that their archivel ablity is very short so he redid all the prints he sold on RC on fiber base paper. Most of us wouldn't have gone that far.

Mike A

c6h6o3 said:

You and I are two of a mind about Clyde Butcher, Don. He has no photographic vision at all.

I think that Adams, however, is different. Before around 1940, he made magnificent photographs. His portrait of Edward Weston under the eucalyptus tree is transcendent (in its original contact printed form-enlargements of it are a mess). But alas, sometime around WWII he changed. I find all the famous pictures which everyone is willing to pay so much for to be glorified postcards. The most carefully crafted illustrations ever produced, but ultimately they are no more than what my friend the gallery owner so perceptively calls "airport art".

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I heard this 30 years ago and to this day who's work is selling for $30,000 and who is lip service.
One mans art is another mans trash. And there is alot of trash out there.

Sandy,
You may remember a year ago when Clyde Butcher initially marketed his carbon inkjet prints as archival carbon prints ( see thread (there was a url link here which no longer exists) ). The 100 year archival quality of carbon inkjet prints was/is a supplier claim that is disputed by many.

As far as comments on vision of Ansel Adams & Clyde Butcher, reminds me of art students & their instructers who disparage certain artists who happen to be popular - somehow popularity is a clear indication to them that the work/artist is lacking in depth. Its not that these Masters are really lacking in vision, its that your vision has changed.

OK I'm going to jump in with both feet and repeat myself to an extent. On other threads we have kind of agreed that photography is painting/drawing with light. We have found that it's impossible to agree on what is or isn't art.

Now my point is where does it say that we have to produce razor sharp pictures, the size and deffinition of grain, if a picture should have high or low contrast and if details should be present? Surely regardless of how the photographer/artist intends the picture to look it is still photography.

Repeating myself we worry too much about technical excellence in the work of others when the fact is it doesn't matter, if you don't like the work ignore it or better still go out and shoot your own to your own standards.

Mmmmm rant over!

Donald Miller said:

I can say the same thing in regard to Ansel Adams' work. I once was impressed with both of these photographers production. That has changed for me.

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One cannot scoff at someone elses opinion (it is as valid as mine) and I too was in two minds about AA's work, that is until I remember what he was as a person and what he was trying to achieve. Lets not forget (correct me if I am wrong, as I may be) that he was at heart as much a conservationist as photographer, arguably a preservationist. If you seek to record fairly literally, there is a limit to what you can do. For example few of my images would ever be in harmony with the concept of preservation of the places recorded. In some respects AA was seeking to take a scalpel cut out of what was in front of him and present it in a favourable flattering way. I see his images like this. Two men, one relaxed, candid and casual; the other turgid and victorian. You cannot say that the stiff gentlemen has less soul, he may simply be more private, have a greater sense of dignity and has a different set of values. There may in fact be far more complexity to this gentleman than the other more brash character.

I find that AA's images are a reflection of the man. Devoted, serious, obsessive and about passion.....in a victorian kind of way.


Again, I am not being critical of other valid opinions, simply offering another view. I now find that when taken in context of the man and the periond of history, his images have great soul and resonance that few other can match, even those whose images are more 'exciting'. I also post this in response the 'fashion' of Ansel bashing amongst very average photographers in the UK, though I am in no way accusing anyone here of this. It has become a sad fact that a number of those writing columns in some UK mags feel it neccessary to validate themselves as truly creative, artistic, fluid photographers by slating AA for being a stiff and uninspiring!

Oh, on topic, I find Clydes images good, but lacking something. I find that they have neither the artistic beauty of Roman Loranc nor the boldness of Bob Kolbrener and Co. They are good, but neither one nor tuther to me.

I'm running away now....

Tom

TPPhotog said:

OK I'm going to jump in with both feet and repeat myself to an extent. On other threads we have kind of agreed that photography is painting/drawing with light. We have found that it's impossible to agree on what is or isn't art.

Now my point is where does it say that we have to produce razor sharp pictures, the size and deffinition of grain, if a picture should have high or low contrast and if details should be present? Surely regardless of how the photographer/artist intends the picture to look it is still photography.

Repeating myself we worry too much about technical excellence in the work of others when the fact is it doesn't matter, if you don't like the work ignore it or better still go out and shoot your own to your own standards.

Mmmmm rant over!

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This has to be one of the best things I have heard on the net in a long time. I can't believe that more people don't feel this way

When I was in school 35 years ago AA bashing was heavy then. I guess it will be for the next 100 years. When your on top everyone under you wants to bash you.

Read Westons day books if you want to know how photography struggled in the 20"s 30"s and 40's with this same thing.