AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL:
The Monumental Photographs of Clyde Butcher
Clyde Butcher’s photographs celebrate the beauty of the American landscape, with a monumental size and extraordinary clarity that set them apart as exceptional works of art. Butcher continues the tradition of the nineteenth-century Hudson River school painters, composing his works at strikingly beautiful and untarnished locations across the United States.
The beauty of his photographs is further emphasized by the epic size of his works. The exceptional size of his compositions--the largest is 5 by 8.5 feet—allows the viewer to experience the beauty of the site from an almost first-hand perspective. Their large dimensions, combined with their strong sense of fluidity and movement, help his work transcend the static nature of the photographic medium.
Butcher’s unique photographic technique enables him to capture a breathtaking amount of detail within his images. His true ingenuity lies within his method; He shoots with wooden Deardorff cameras from the 1940’s, creating an extraordinary depth of field through a synthesis of wide angled lenses and a small lens opening. His remarkably large negatives, combined with orange and blue filters and a longer-than-average exposure time—up to ten minutes—allow for clarity and incredible detail within his compositions. Although the locations he photographs are striking in and of themselves, this original approach purposefully accentuates their organic sense of movement and enduring monumentality, clearly distinguishing his scenes as impressive artistic works.
The photographs in Butcher’s exhibition span beautiful sites across the United States, from the coast of Maine to Hawai’i. His views include some of the same locations shot by the photographer Ansel Adams, demonstrating the unique light and clarity that Butcher’s artistic vision brings to those scenes. Butcher’s arresting compositions distinctly mark him as the foremost landscape photographer in America today. |
