Clyde Butcher is one of the greatest American landscape photographers since Ansel Adams and a true hero of modern naturalism. Not only does he hike out into the swamp under conditions that would make most here wilt like cotton candy in the rain (see other comments), he often does it with camera equipment that is ancient, heavy, and bulky by today’s standards.

The biggest danger in the Everglades isn’t leeches (not at all common), brain eating amoebas (just keep your head above water), snakes (most would rather just slither away), snapping turtles (only aggressive when trapped), or gators (generally slow, predictable, dumb, and avoidable); it’s ignorance. The swamp isn’t a place into which you’d want to be dropped off unprepared and unequipped, but neither is LA of New York City.

Clive Butcher also did a landscape photography series of Salvador Dali’s home town that really opened my eyes about the scenes and settings in many of Dali’s paintings. It becomes clear that although surreal, many of the landscapes in Dali’s paintings are actually surprisingly real places painted literally but adorned with surreal characters and objects.

Clive Butcher walks the line between tough man and sensitive artist, cottage-core and goblin-core, Lorax and Crocodile Dundee.