It was 3 a.m. The lights in the kitchen were on at the Lee house. Magazine clippings were strewn on the table. Photographer Bud Lee was making one of his collage books.
In his bedroom, son Parker Lee could hear his father banging around in their home looking at slides and dizzying himself in the creative process.
Mr. Lee was a night owl. This late-night expressive session had happened many times before. And many times since.
It’s one of the things Parker Lee remembers about his father.
“He was unlike anyone you ever met,” Parker Lee said. “He really was a creative force.”
Until his last days, Mr. Lee, a Life magazine Photographer of the Year winner, was creating. He died Thursday, June 11, at 74.
He freelanced for Vogue, Esquire, New York Times, and on and on. He was the Military Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association. He was an artist.
“He was kind of a bizarre guy in a lot of ways,” John Briggs, his friend for 40 years, said. “But that’s an artist. He was more of an artist than a photographer.”
Mr. Lee’s photographs of Clint Eastwood, Norman Rockwell and Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger solidified his reputation as a talented creative.
His first professional work was for the United States Army, where he worked at Stars & Stripes in the 1960s.
From there he captured raw shots of the first legally aborted fetus. He documented Newark, New Jersey riots looter Billy Furr seconds before Furr was shot and killed by police.
All those moments became part of history because of his skillful eye.
Who knew he had wanted to start out being a filmmaker and not a photographer?
He loved Turner Classic Movies. Musicals were his favorite, especially “My Fair Lady.”
He passed the passion for film and the arts to his family.
“I have a lot of paints in my house, just like we had,” his daughter, Steckley Lee, said. “I really like to let (my children) create art.”
Her youngest daughter, Eleanor, 1, is just starting to color. Her oldest, Ryah, 7, makes costumes for her cousins and is drawing constantly, just like her grandpa. Iba, 4, also has her own creative tendencies.
Steckley Lee, Parker Lee and their siblings, Thomas Lee and Charlotte Lee, grew up under their father’s influence. They were always around artists, including Briggs. When other families had Bugs Bunny on the TV, they were watching “To Kill a Mocking Bird.” He encouraged them to paint carpets in the backyard and disassemble anything in the house to make it into something new.
“It did seem special,” Steckley Lee said. “We knew we were different, our experiences were different. And I was really proud.”
But he didn’t force his views or lifestyle on his children.
“(Photography) was his thing,” Parker Lee said. “We all had our own thing.”
His children went into creative fields. Charlotte Lee is a set decoration buyer for films. Thomas Lee went into filmmaking because of his father. Parker Lee is an architect. Steckley Lee was an attorney but didn’t lose her creative spirit.
Maybe it’s because of all the times Mr. Lee took the family along with him on his projects or on cross-country road trips. He would sit in the passenger seat and make his children’s dolls dance to entertain them.
“He always tried to include us in his work,” Steckley Lee said.
Once, he took her and her friend Julie on a photoshoot at Disney World. He was shooting promotional materials for Disney’s new hotels.
When she wasn’t invited to prom, he gave her a pep talk.
“He said, ‘Right now, people can’t see the beauty, and one day they will,’” she said. “He always saw the beauty in everything and tried to bring it out.”
Like the time he was photographing a Haitian artist who made sequins flags in Miami. He asked if he could move some of the furniture in the artist’s house around. Mr. Lee thought the 2-foot-tall ceramic vase in the living room was pretty. He wanted it in the shot.
He moved it.
“Just not that vase,” the Haitian artist said.
Panic. He moved it back.
It had a spirit in it — according to the Haitian artist.
“He looked at things completely different than a lot of people,” Briggs said.
Briggs and Mr. Lee went on many road trips together as part of their National Endowment for the Arts assignments.
“He always took the back roads,” Briggs said. “He was never in a hurry to go anywhere.”
As chaotic and enlivening as Mr. Lee was, he had an enticing duality. He was an organizer, a connector. He founded The Artists and Writers Ball in Tampa to bring the art community together.
“There’s not really anyone who has stepped up to the plate and has done what he’s done,” Briggs said. “He was good at orchestration and at bringing together a diverse group of people.”
It took a stroke to slow Mr. Lee down. He moved into a Plant City nursing home after the stroke 12 years ago. But that wasn’t the end of him.
He continued to paint, draw and write.
“Even after his stroke, he was still growing and creating and was still a very vibrant person,” Steckley Lee said. “I think a lot of people missed out on that part of his life.”
Abstracts were his thing during this time; nudes and nature were the subjects. He continued watching Turner Classic Movies. He also liked the spiritual leaders who were interviewed on Oprah. He would use the quotes he found inspirational in his artwork.
In the last few years he focused on writing.
His children have his photographs hanging in their homes. They trade and share. Parker Lee has a lot of his Stars & Stripes shots. Steckley Lee’s favorite is the picture of a couple in a truck bed on a San Francisco bridge. All his work is familiar. They grew up around it. But his recent writing is something new to them. Steckley Lee is looking forward to going through his things to read his thoughts and dreams.
Because no one ever stops dreaming. No artist ever stops creating.
And although his art was his legacy, those who knew Mr. Lee would agree he left something else behind much more precious.
“He said his family was his greatest work of art,” Steckley Lee said.
Mr. Lee is survived by his wife, Peggy; children, Charlotte, Steckley, Parker and Thomas Lee; and grandchildren, Ryah, Iba, Eleanor, Madoc and Jack.
A service will be held July 11 at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, 400 N. Ashley Drive. Family visitation will be at 5 p.m. The service will be at 6 p.m.
