Journal 8
On May 23rd Richard Bickel, Clyde Butcher, Sammy Tedder and Elam Stoltzfus met together on Richard's porch to plan the marketing targets, layout design, and objectives to complete the "American Treasure" project. Roger Martin, representing Apalachicola Riverkeepers joined us to provide 'up-to-the-date" information concerning sponsors, contacts and marketing strategies. We all made commitments to work together, yet maintain our individual expressions of our art, featuring the Apalachicola River and Bay places, people and sounds.
Elam trying to capture an image of the Swallow-tailed Kite in flight along the river was real challenge.

Below: Clyde takes a snapshot of a root formation just north of the Aspalaga Landing along the river bank.
All images by Niki Butcher
Located north east of Wewahitchka is a very unique body of water named "The Dead Lakes". Clyde had heard about the lakes and Elam has been waiting for the opportunity to film the beautiful cypress growth. We finally scheduled the time to document the area. Clyde had an usual situation occur for the setup to photograph the cypress trees. A typical setup for Clyde would be to get in the water, secure the tripod and photograph the landscape. However, in the Dead Lakes the water was deep and we had to photograph from the boat. With the assistance of tying ropes to cypress knees, holding real still during exposures and little luck. Clyde was able to capture his "instincts of prespective" in the still waters of a picture perfect day on the "Dead Lakes".
For Elam filming a sequence of cypress growth from the front deck of the boat, it up to the person driving the boat to steer clear of the stumps just below the surface of the water.
Jane Atkins