Mayor of Bogotá Colombia to honor photographer Mike Butler for his work in photographing the Virigilo Barco Public Library

Online, October 4, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Bogotá Colombia, photographer and artist Mike Butler is being honored for his ground breaking photographic project of the Virgilio Barco Public Library, located in the heart of Bogotá.

The event is being hosted by the Mayor of Bogotá Samuel Moreno Rojas and attended by Local Political Official Fernando Rojas (no relation to mayor) along with various other local political and cultural officials from Colombia. During the ceremony The images will be donated to the Colombian people for the use in promoting cultural education, cultural events and the furtherance of intellectual work.

The exhibition of the images will continue throughout the month at the 93rd Park, allowing the local people of Bogotá unfettered access to view them.

The Virgilio Barco Library the preeminent cultural icon in Colombia, built by Colombia's greatest architect Rogelio Salmona.

Project Background:

Mike Butler's Miami Florida based team (both stateside and in Colombia) worked for over a year in the pre-production of this assignment, meeting with government officials, local ( Fernadno Rojas ) and federal along with the national board of architects, the library itself and the late architects wife María Elvira Madrinán, to gain access to The Library. After several trips to Bogotá and many meetings Mike was finally granted access and full cooperation from the government and library to photograph as he saw fit. For the shoot itself Mike along with his crew spent 5 nights under armed security to capture these impressive photos, executing two images per night. He used a full complement of lighting mixed with hybrid capture techniques which Mike has been using since 1999, backed up by Photoshop post production. These images not only represent an incredible technical and logistical achievement but we also feel these images represent the preeminent photographic work in the world of the late architect Rogelio Salmona.