About the Artist

Watkins Glen, 1974

Butch Lombardi has been a photographer since 1968. His first camera was a 35mm Mamiya DSX1000, a camera he still uses today, along with a Cannon 60D, a Minolta S404, and a Nikon FG. In his early years he spent his time developing his technique shooting formula 1 Grand Prix Cars, landscapes, and some wildlife. There were entries in the annual Warren Summer Festival Art Show (the forerunner of today's Quahog Festival) and even a few honorable mentions before family and job responsibilities, along with involvement in sports ate up most of his time - photography taking a back seat. The bulk of his work between 1975 and 2002 was family photos and once in a while, an attempt at something creative.

That changed in 2002. After taking an early retirement from Verizon in 1998 there was suddenly more free time. Golf occupied most of that until he started receiving cards from his sister containing pictures she had shot around her home in the mountains of Vermont. After spending a summer working on Nantucket for the Phone Company in 1986, he returned to Warren with a new appreciation for his native small town, it's beautiful working waterfront and the surrounding East Bay area. In the fall of 2002 he dusted off his film cameras, added digital cameras to his arsenal and set out to capture the colonial charm of Warren and the East Bay. Soon, his photos started appearing on cards to friends and family. The advice from everyone was - "you have to sell this stuff". He felt that anyone could sell pictures, the question was would anyone buy them? That question was answered this past summer season when participation in several craft shows proved that people would indeed "buy them". In a short three year span Butch’s photography has won awards (Sea Smoke, 2nd place-photography, Warren Arts Festival July 2006 and 2nd place- juried photography exhibition, Four Corners Arts Center, Tiverton RI, August 3, 2007).  He has sold photographs to customers in such far away places as New Zealand, Hawaii, Uruguay and England as well as Florida, California, and many other locations within the United States. His work has appeared in Audubon publications, The Town Planner Calendar (his work appears on six of the twelve months plus the cover), and the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame website. In a one man show at the Audubon Environmental Education Center in Bristol RI he set a record for the most pieces sold by an exhibiting artist.

What you see here is the culmination of 3 years of early mornings and late evenings, working in bitter cold, heat, snow, rain, and fog, slogging through marsh and woodland - all in search of the perfect picture. While he works in both digital and film formats, his pictures are not altered or manipulated. The vibrant colors are the result of Mother Nature and the same photographic filters he has used since the early 70's. He feels digital is a great format for someone on a tight budget, because it doesn't eat up film.

Butch Lombardi is a lifelong resident of Warren, Rhode Island. He resides there with his wife, Cyndy.