Immerse yourself in the magic of Myakka River. Clyde Butcher comes to The Bishop

There is a sincere message that Florida photographer Clyde Butcher hopes to impart with his images of the Myakka River and the surrounding wilds.

When asked what it is, he pauses; his straw hat, banded with alligator hide, casts shadows over a sun-weathered and bearded face as he reflects on how best to put it.

Then his expression brightens into a smile. “Keep it,” Butcher says of the water and the land that he has come to know so well.

Butcher, 77, spends most of his time these days in Venice, and calls Myakka River State Park “his new backyard.”

But he’s been photographing the iconic land and its many habitats since the ‘90s.

A collection of his photos captured around the park, the river and nearby ranch land is now on display at The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in Bradenton.

“Myakka River: A Florida Treasure” is a sight to behold. There are fern-enveloped oak boughs, a silvery moon rise over a solitary pine tree and a 200-foot-wide sinkhole filled to the brim with serene waters (waters, one might add, known to attract hordes of alligators).

Beyond a pleasure for the eyes, though, the exhibit places the scenes in a scientific context that will be fascinating to anyone with an interest in the natural world. And as Butcher reminds, everyone should be interested.

It took a lot of research to pinpoint the exact locations and ecological details of each of Butcher’s captures.

Enter Tiffany Birakis and Matthew Woodside, curators at The Bishop.

Birakis says the display was months in the making; the process included a journey through Myakka River State Park, guided by rangers, to get the lay of the land.

“Getting that insight from the experts that live and breathe it everyday,” Birakis explained.

Birakis’s favorite photo, at the moment, is one called “Myakka Oak 20.” Walking into the gallery, it’s probably one of the first that you’ll see.

“To me, it’s a very quintessential Myakka scene,” Birakis said. In it, an aged oak limb in the foreground arches and twists over a grass prairie and distant palm trees.

Like many of the shots, it reflects Florida’s unique biodiversity.

During a special preview of the exhibit, Butcher sat in a corner signing autographs and chatting with visitors.

One admirer asked him about encounters with dangerous animals.

Butcher replied that he feels safer wading in Florida’s swamps than driving on its roadways. Although, he did have to bop an overly curious alligator on the snout once.

The photographer has ventured into many of Florida’s no-man-or-woman’s lands on behalf of the human race.

In its black-and-white time freeze, Butcher’s work invites viewers to consider the environment around them in a new way.

The photos capture moments here and then gone — just like many of Florida’s wild places, guarded less dearly than Myakka River, are now gone.

The Myakka exhibit is not Butcher’s first at the museum, and it might not be the last. His latest project is taking him to North Florida to document more vulnerable territory.

In the meantime, he encourages you to go see Myakka firsthand.

“It felt like I was in the middle of the Amazon,” Butcher said of one his most memorable days in the park, walking beneath a tree canopy.

“A lot of these spaces are very easily accessible,” Birakis said of the scenes in the photographs. “It might be something that you drive by at first, but if you slow down a little bit, all of the sudden you see this beautiful thing that’s right in front of you.”

Butcher’s stills of the local landscape will be on display through late summer at The Bishop.

Details: Feb. 7 through Sep. 6. Bishop Museum of Science and Nature, 201 10th St. W., Bradenton. Included with museum admission; $8.95-$23.95.

Info: bishopscience.org.

This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 9:35 AM.