FLORIDA BAY © 1994

Everglades National Park, FL

Mangroves are special plants because without them we would have no fish. Yet people do not respect them. I remember when Florida’s late Governor Lawton Chiles said he was afraid that if we didn’t pass a law to save the mangroves, the state would look like a giant bathtub because all the mangroves would be replaced by concrete sea walls. Florida Bay Estuary The coastal area of the Everglades ecosystem, including mangrove islands, is crucial to the marine life that inhabits most of the Gulf and Atlantic waters around South Florida. The freshwater runoff from the wetlands mixes with the saltwater of the Gulf to create an estuary supporting the bulk of recreational and commercial fish during their reproductive or developmental stages. Florida Bay 3 was taken with a Deardorff 5×7 camera on T-Max 100 film. This photograph is hand-printed in Clyde’s darkroom on fiber-based paper, selenium toned, then mounted and matted to current archival standards. The photograph is a limited edition and signed by Clyde. Camera settings f/45 | 120mm Nikkor SW lens | orange filter | 1 second. Disclaimer – Cropping, contrast, and image density may vary. To learn more about the darkroom printing process, click here.