Clyde has been working on an instructional video to teach his style of photoshop to photographers. I have not seen the dvd but I do know Clyde's methods are somewhat unconventional. He thinks that most of the books out there are to complicated and his method is more in line with his traditional darkroom workflow.
I know I have learned a lot from him. Here is the link to the dvd.
http://www.clydebutcher.com/clyde-bu...cfm?holdid=560
www.timeandlight.com
Following the links, I came to an interview with Double Exposure Magazine. Clyde makes the following statements, which I found intriguing:
DE: For the technophobes in our readership, can you tell us if you have a preferred film choice and why? Also, do you use different developers for different situations?
CB: T-Max 100 because it looks good. No I don't play around with different developers. I use T-Max developer for T-Max film...I wait for the right light so that I don't need to do all of that "fancy" stuff.
DE: Your work is often compared with Ansel Adam's. However, you make the distinction of "things" and "spaces." Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
CE: I create room for the person to walk into the picture, whereas Adams images were "perhaps" more graphic than mine. His are composed of shape, form and texture. Mine are spaces. In most of my images, in the center of the photograph, where the subject should be, is a vacant space - for you, the viewer, to walk into....
DE: What sort of planning do you do before going out on a shoot?
CB: I make sure I have my equipment ready and then follow the light.
Years ago I ordered a Clyde Butcher video that was billed as being just like attending his workshop. It was basically useless because some amateur mostly just followed around behind Clyde filming him as he worked one-on-one with students. You often couldn't see what he was doing and didn't know what he was talking about when you could even understand what he was saying. It was probably the worst "instructional" video I've ever seen.
It may be unfair to mention this now, because this obviously is a different video than the one I had, but it costs $95. If it was me I'd wait until a few people have seen it and have good things to say about it before spending that much money.
I've attended one of Clyde's two-day field session workshops. It was a very useful workshop, he and his wife were helpful and enjoyable to be around. I also admire his work. So I have no grudges at all against him, I just would like to hear more about this video before ordering it.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
Maybe I'll see if I can get a copy to review then post the results on my blog and here. It might be a good workflow for my students too. Does anyone have an email address for him or his staff? The contact tab on his site does not have room for a message.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
Hi Kirk,
His daughter Jackie runs the business end of things, here is her contact.
Jackie@clydebutcher.com
As far as the quality goes, Elam Stoltzfus did the video. He is a very top notch HD video person who has been doing all of Clyde's recent projects.
If you still have problems contacting let me know.
www.timeandlight.com
I purchased the dvd at the Big Cypress Gallery last week. I had a really hard time with the $95 price tag but I figured I could learn a lot from a photographer whose work I really admire. I should say that I have only seen about 2/3ds of the disc, not all of it, so my opinion is subject to change.
The dvd seems to be shot with 3 cameras, and the view changes from one to the other with regularity. Its very distracting. The view of Clydes screen is not great. I think some kind of screen capture software could have been used.
Butchers approach to explaning his workflow is casual, which I liked at the beginning, but realized quickly it was too casual. He does not do a good job explaing a lot of the tools. Had I never used PS before I would be totally lost. Words like "doohicky" seem out of place. Using the correct terminology would be helpful.
The first chapter I went too was converting color to black and white. Really excited about that. The 2-4 minute tutorial consisted of something like " in the layer palette click the black and white button which converts the image to B and W, then adjust the sliders. Perhaps I was expecting too much?
But the man is a master (imo) so I will try his workflow, which is quite different than the one I use, and see how it goes. I do feel however that I spent $70 more than I should have done for the dvd.
Do you think he really meant to say, "technophobes"? Hahahahahh!Originally Posted by Ken Lee
Some time ago I attended a workshop in Sarasota where Clyde demonstrated his Photoshop technique.
At the time, I had not learned about layering and the whole process was Chinese slight-of-hand to me (my workshop fee essentially went down the toilet), but it certainly seemed easy and logical.
Basically, as I remember it, he just created layers from his original image, then applies dodging and/or burning to individual layers (just like a wet darkroom), and finally flattens the image before making other corrections and printing it.
If that's what the DVD shows then it's worth having, but $95 seems too high.
Personally, I prefer his inkjet prints to his silver ones -- some day I hope to own one of "Seven cabbage Cut".
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
Bill. he does use screen and multiply layers and then the history brush lot. Also like to use the gradient tool. He works on the computer very much as he does in the darkroom.
From the sample video posted on youtube, it seems he's also shooting color, then converting it to BW and using the channel mixer.
Is it a good practice to shoot BW film, then scan? You loose the channel control functionality.
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