Digital Photography Technology

Clyde Butcher

Clyde Butcher was born in Kansas City, Missouri 1942. They moved to California and he attended California Polytechnic University studying architecture. While in college, he had gone to Yosemite Nation Park and saw some of Ansel Adams’ work and was very much impressed. During his last year of college, he married his wife, Niki.

He was already interested in photography, but did start his career in architecture.. That lasted for awhile until he lost his job, and he then turned to photography. He had been photographing landscapes and tried selling them at local street art festivals. That was the turning point in his life, as he discovered that there was money to be made in landscape landscapes.

He started a business and partnership selling his photography to large department stores, but this got to be so stressful that he sold the business and moved to Florida.

Again, he started selling his work at local street fairs, but in 1986, disaster struck when Clyde’s son was killed in an automobile accident by a drunk driver. He retreated into the swamp to be alone and continue taking black and white pictures with his 4×5, 5×7, 8×10, and 12×20 view cameras.

In 1993, Butcher moved with his wife and family into a two story house in the middle of Big Cypress National Preserve. Memories of his son were still present, and he and his wife decided to live with the beauty of nature to help heal the hurt that they had gone through.

He began taking photographs of the area where he lived and in the nearby Everglades. When he took the photography to the art shows, people all thought they were taken somewhere in Africa. They found it hard to believe this was Florida, and what only a very people had ever seen.

One of his main goals in life is to save the ecosystem. Everything is so fragile and pristine, and to destroy it would be outrageous. Destruction has been done already, attempting to drain the swamp areas which disrupts the whole ecosystem. Builders will try to keep draining until there is nothing left to drain.

One of the rarest plants in the world is the ghost orchid. There are only about 150 known in existence, and they do not bloom very often. Clyde finds and photographs them when they are in bloom.

Clyde has made numerous appearances on television, local organizations, and around the world explaining what we must do save our earth from destruction.

Spreading the images and the word is Clyde’s goal in life.

For Photographer Clyde Butcher, The Swamp Is A Beautiful Place