Day 117: Bill Butler

I’m put off by artists that try to be too philosophical. I just shoot in terms of when I travel with my travel or anything like beauty, fashion, dance. I went to ASU. I got a BA in advertising and I took one photo class to get my degree and it just sort of fell in love with photography. 

In photography when I started it was just about film. We had to develop the film, put it into the canister and I agitated.it  I agitated it like I would a drink and what happened is it only developed 2/3 of the film. Which created this weird liquid looking edge in all the images. My teacher asked me what I did. I showed him how I agitated it. Anyway, he said “that’s wrong but it created such a wonderful effect It created a liquid mark on the top of the film on the images. And he said it was a wonderful effect caused by a mistake. And then from there, I started photographing what I found of interest. I especially enjoy photographing people. And did so. I traveled extensively. Europe, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, and Hawaii. In addition to landscapes, I was always drawn to the people. I’m fairly good with people. You can approach strangers and if you approach them in the right way you can take their picture. After college and getting a law degree from ASU I originally worked in the legal field at a junior college in Palm Springs. I got involved in theater. My first major role is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I eventually quit my day job at the college and concentrated on doing head shots and portfolios for my fellow actors. That was 40 years ago and I haven’t got a real job since.

I should also mention that much of my work follows a rule I learned in visual advertising. Generally, I like to direct the viewer's eye towards the upper left of the image since, in western cultures, you learn to read from upper left to lower right. Therefore the upper left is considered the optical center.

photosbybillbutler.com

first image he mentioned about in written statement