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Art

Scenes from the swamp

Wilderness photographer Jeff Ripple goes on location to bring hidden Florida to life in all its colors.

By TERRY TOMALIN
Published April 14, 2005

[Photo: Jeff Ripple]

Hillsborough River I by photographer Jeff Ripple, who owns several canoes and kayaks to get to the places few Floridians have seen.

	[Photo: Jeff Ripple]
	Jeff Ripple’s West Contents Key IV.
	Best of shows Mainsail, St. Petersburg's waterfront art festival, invites winners from the past 30 years to this weekend's show. Scenes from the swamp Wilderness photographer Jeff Ripple goes on location to bring hidden Florida to life in all its colors. Hot Ticket: Wildlife and Western visions After you have enjoyed the Mainsail Arts Festival on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, head west to the Raymond James Financial Center, 880 Carillon Parkway, St. Petersburg, for the sixth annual Wildlife and Western Visions Art Show.

OCHOPEE - Sitting on picnic bench outside of Clyde Butcher's Big Cypress Gallery, Jeff Ripple feels like he has finally found his piece of paradise.

"I've been coming down here for years," said the wilderness photographer, who is among the artists exhibiting at Mainsail this weekend. "I lived in Boca Raton and then Gainesville, but it seemed like I was always spending most of my time here in the swamp."

Ripple, like Butcher, uses a large-format camera. But unlike the man who has been called a modern Ansel Adams, Ripple's medium is color.

"I started off as an artist," he said. "But I discovered that I was red-green color blind. And that led to some problems."

Ripple, an accomplished writer, has penned eight books, including one on the Big Cypress Swamp (where he now lives) and the Ten Thousand Islands. But it was Butcher who encouraged him to drop the pen and pick up the camera.

"I have always loved photography, but in 1994, Clyde convinced me to pursue it full time," he said. "I am glad he did."

Like Butcher, Ripple, 41 spends most of his time in the field. He owns several canoes and kayaks, which he uses to get to the places few Floridians have seen.

"All of my work involves water in some way or another," he said. "I paddle out, then spend most of my time looking."

Working with a 4 by 5 field camera, which produces large negatives for greater clarity in printing, isn't easy. Ripple's film must be kept cool, no small task when you are working under a subtropical sun.

"I pack everything in coolers and cover them up with white towels," he said. "It is pretty involved ... you just can't point and snap away."

Ripple said he takes his time when studying a subject - be it a river, swamp or island - before snapping a test picture with a black-and-white Polaroid camera.

"When you are working with large format, you tend to be pretty particular with what you shoot," he said. "On any given trip, I may come home with only one or two shots that may be commercially successful."

When choosing a photograph, Ripple said he doesn't get preoccupied with color.

"I am more interested in tone and textures," he said. "It is the whole atmosphere, the total composition that makes a picture. I know right away just by the light whether the color will work or not."

Ripple has a reverence for the places he photographs.

He is currently in the middle of a yearlong project that will document the Tomoka River on Florida's east coast.

"I am spending a year with a painter and we are trying to document the river from the headwaters to where it empties into the Intracoastal Waterway," he said.

"It is only 7 miles long, but it is all in private ownership," Ripple said. "We want to capture it while it is still in a pristine state and relatively untouched. Because you never know how long it is going to last."

Go to Jeff Ripple's Web site at www.jeffripple.com or visit Clyde Butcher's Big Cypress Gallery at 52388 Tamiami Trail, Ochopee, FL. Telephone: 239 695-2428 or toll-free (888) 999-9113.

[Last modified April 13, 2005, 10:47:27]