TAMIAMI TRAIL 12 © 1996

Western Everglades

I feel that if you keep your eyes open, the world will present an endless amount of photographic opportunities, and very often, those opportunities are right alongside the road. The Tamiami Trail (Highway 41) stretches from Tampa to Miami, much of it through towns. However, between Naples and Miami, it becomes a two-lane road crossing the width of the state, passing more than a hundred miles of the Everglades,  the “River of Grass.” Ready to capture an opportune moment, I always keep a camera with me while I travel this road with its vast vistas, beautiful rolling thunderheads, and gently swaying grass. Water’s Journey Through the Everglades: Prairie to the Gulf Here, in the Big Cypress National Preserve, open waters are the deepest, lying six to twenty-four inches below the prairie. As water travels across the entirety of the Everglades on a barely perceptible slope from the prairies to the Gulf, a mosaic of distinctive plant communities grows at an elevation, never rising much more than 20 feet above sea level. Tamiami Trail 12 was taken with a Deardorff 11×14 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 | 150mm Schneider Super-Symmar XL lens | orange filter | 1 second Disclaimer – Cropping, contrast, and image density may vary. To learn more about the darkroom printing process, click here.