A long time ago I used to do calligraphy. I was pretty good at it, and picked up some spare change by doing place cards for wedding receptions, invitations, and a couple of framed pieces. I didn’t do anything fancy – just basic Old English and script fonts. I had the correct pens, and that was half the battle.

Then came computers, desktop publishing, laser printers, and the ready availability of an almost unlimited number of fonts. Calligraphy was dead as a commercial endeavor. Only artists of the highest caliber could hope to make a go of it. I myself haven’t put pen to ink in decades.

I fear that photography is at a similar juncture. And, I’ve got a couple of pieces of evidence to back me up.

First, last weekend was Artisphere in Greenville. Laura made the trek over to the festival while I was off paddling Sparkleberry Swamp. Her comment was that there were very few booths with the type of abstractionist art that she likes. Instead it was either hyper-realistic watercolors and paintings, or photography. She commented that there were more and more photography booths at these exhibits.

Then, this past Sunday there was an article in the Greenville News about the Pickens County Museum of Art & History’s “Thirty-Third Annual Juried South Carolina Artist’s Exhibition.” The author of the News article commented on the number of photographs entered in the exhibit…

Photography is playing a big role in the 33rd annual Pickens County Juried Art Show.

“We’ve never had so much photography entered,” says Allen Coleman, executive director of the Pickens County Cultural Commission. “Out of 194 artists who entered the show, 71 were photographers.”

What accounts for the dominance of photography this year?

It’s a sign of “the digital age,” Coleman says. In fact, the show’s top prize went to a digital ink-jet photograph, “Woods Along the Tyger River,” by Taylors resident Zane Logan.

…and that last statement pretty much sums it up.  Artistic photographic effects are now trivial, with Instagram filters, automated Photoshop actions, and other quick tools readily available for punching up an otherwise mediocre photograph.  High-quality inject printers are available at the consumer level.

Camera technology itself has improved so much that settings within the device itself, whether an actual camera or smart phone, can compensate for lots of problems. I’ve noticed this with my own new little camera. This fake tilt-shift image was straight out of the camera, with no post-processing…

That effect previously would have required Photoshop and several minutes of tweaking, as well as knowing how to handle selective blur and color curves.

As for the quality of this glut of photographs? As with anything it’s a mix of good and mediocre. To be honest, I wasn’t as impressed with the winning photographs in the Pickens show. I’m seen much, much better photographs just taken casually by some of my friends. I’ve also seen some “artists” put up booths with the intent to sell some really bad photos. I even came across one photographer that shares a studio at River Place. The photographs there had one of the stock Photoshop filters applied, then were printed on canvas. Apart from that, there was nothing to distinguish the images, and certainly nothing to make me want to pay the prices this artist was demanding.

Even with advanced technology the rules of composition apply. There will always be those photographers that really understand these advanced tools, and know how to get the best images from them. There will also be those that think that a good camera and printer equals good photography. Unfortunately, the number of those in both of these categories is increasing, and there is almost a market glut.

Who knows, though? Maybe even photography itself is no longer necessary. The image below is completely fake…

These nuts and bolts do not exist. The entire image was created by the open source program Blender, from the surface texture to the lighting effects. According to Mark Meyer at Petapixel, still-life photographers may be facing some competition from sophisticated software packages.

But, that’s the way things have always been. Advanced technology makes things easier, and replaces those that once made money in that field. In music studios synths and samplers replace oboists and string players, etc., etc.

As for me, I don’t think I’ll abandon photography like I have calligraphy. One of the main reasons I take pictures is to document events and the places I explore. I strive for quality images, but will use lesser ones if it gets my point across. What I don’t expect is to make lots of money from my photographs.

A second Saturday in May, and time for another Lowcountry Unfiltered trip. This time our group was heading back to Sparkleberry Swamp, and we had perfect weather and water levels for it. Unfortunately, because there was perfect weather, many of our group had other places to be. So, only four brave souls ventured further into the swamp than we’ve ever been. It was a nearly perfect day in the swamp. (Have I said the word “perfect” enough?)

I got up early Saturday morning and made the drive down to the Sparkleberry Landing put-in. Initially I had the place to myself, with only a few boat trailers. As I unloaded the boats I brought, a couple of guys came up to me and asked about kayaking.

As I was waiting for the LCU guys, lots of other boaters showed up. It seems that the Congaree Riverkeepers also had a trip planned for the swamp. When Matt, Alan, and Ryan arrived, there was already quite the crowd at the boat ramp. It sounded like they were going to follow pretty much the same route we were. Fortunately, we were able to get our gear together quickly and launch first.

With a smaller group we had a bit more flexibility. Our plan was to head north, up through Jones Flat. We had waypoints in our GPSs for a “tree chair” and for the floating cabin Dwight and I had found last year. We would then head back down Fifty Fools Creek to Otter Creek, eventually reaching Riser Lake for lunch.

In addition to the GPSs that Matt and I had, we were now sporting “official” LCU FRS radios. Our groups had been getting bigger and bigger (with the exception of this one), and we needed a way to keep everyone together. I had found a set of eight radios for us to use on our trips. This, combined with other radios we had available, meant that just about everyone in the group could have a radio. Seemed like a reasonable safety measure. Of course, we only needed four of those today.

We headed on out through the canoe pass and out into Sparkleberry Flat. The weather was just as spectacular as we had hoped, and the scenery was astounding.

The route requires paddlers to cross the lake-like flat and locate a somewhat hidden path on the southeast corner of the flat. Usually I have no problem finding the entrance because it’s marked with a sign. Somehow this time I missed it by about 100 yards. We cut into the forest and headed north. About this time we heard crashing in the water nearby, and spotted a fawn running through the swamp. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get a photo.

With the water as high as it was it seemed like we could paddle just about anywhere. Instead of a hike through a forest, we were paddling through it – navigation was almost the same. Soon we found ourselves back on the main route on Otter Creek. However, almost immediately we crossed over the creek and headed toward Jones Flat. We were now on new territory.

Even with a GPS navigation could be tricky. We knew about where we wanted to go, but maps tend to be inadequate. There are so many paths, so many routes through the trees that it’s very easy to get turned around. Google Earth and Topographic views are OK, but we’ve found that the best map is a 1973 hand-drawn map by John Hughes Cooper and John Townshend Cooper that shows the “bones” of the swamp. I’m not sure who drew it, but John Nelson passed it along to us.

The “flats” are large, lake-like features, usually opening off of some creek. Creeks are established channels, usually with a bit of current. “Guts” are depressions that are usually flooded and navigable. However, at low water they might be dry. With this map we laid out our approximate route along several creeks and flats.

When we entered Jones Flat we could hear the voices of the other paddling group, but those soon faded out and we had the swamp to ourselves. We began to see lots of wildlife. Prothonotary warblers flitted from branch to branch, taunting us with their “sweet-sweet-sweet” calls. I was never able to get a shot, but I think Matt got a couple of photos. There were lots of herons and snowy egrets. We saw several small gators, and another family of deer. The flats themselves were covered with water vegetation of some sort in places, but for the most part were wide open.

We had a target. For some reason I had a waymark listed as a “tree chair”. Seeing as this was one of the only landmarks (swampmarks?) in the area, we decided to try to find it. At the edge of Jones Flat, hidden behind some of the swamp vegetation, Alan spotted it – a board nailed between two trees. Well, not much of a chair, but I bet you could sit on it. We didn’t attempt it. At least it let us know where we were on our map so that we could proceed to the next location. While it may not be much, these little man-made anomalies are all that break up the uniform view of the swamp.

From the tree chair we cut west across the deep swamp, and found ourselves headed southward on Fifty Fools Creek. The only difference between the creek and the deep swamp area we had just traversed was that there was a bit more space between the trees, and you could kind of see where to paddle. Our target was the floating cabin, which I knew to be on this creek. At the very least, it would get us back to Otter Creek and the main route.

My GPS coordinates didn’t fail me. We found Fifty Fools Cabin hidden in the woods, just as Dwight and I had done before. It looked a bit worse for the wear, sagging a bit in the middle. There were no occupants. Matt and Alan went aboard, and found the door open. They took a peek inside, while I worried about swamp people taking umbrage with our trespass. The sounds of a boat motor reinforced that worry.

Inside Matt found several bunks, some supplies, and a well-stocked wine rack. Hmm, not PBR? I guess these swamp people were a bit more sophisticated.

We left the cabin and headed on down Fifty Fools Creek. We soon came upon the boat I’d heard earlier – two fishermen trying their luck in the deep swamp. I don’t think they were associated with the cabin.

Getting back to Otter Creek was trickier than we thought. We hit several parallel paths, but eventually found ourselves on the right path. The presence of several motor boats zipping past confirmed that we were in the right place.

We paddled along Otter Creek Flat for awhile, making our way toward Riser Lake. At one point the channel splits, with White Oak Neck heading off to the northwest, and Otter Flat to the southwest. At the confluence, in the top of a tall dead cypress, was a huge osprey nest.

The osprey was NOT happy we were there, so we continued on our way. A family of wood ducks distracted us for a bit, though…

Eventually we found the cut-through to Risers Lake. There was a bit of a breeze, and the lake was choppier than on previous visits. We crossed over to high ground and stopped for a late lunch.

Suitably refreshed, we made our way down the lay toward another cut over to Otter Creek. We passed a tree full of snowy ibises. Soon, we found what we thought was the correct route, marked by a memorial sign.

My mantra, based on two previous trips through here, was “Trust the route.” In other words, stick to the clearest route and don’t try to bushwhack (swampwhack?) a shorter route to Otter Creek. We tried that on one other LCU trip and several had to portage over higher ground, or squeeze through very tight vegetation. That mantra was all well and good…had we been on the correct route.

As it was, we were on Sander’s Slough, which doesn’t really connect to Otter Creek. The scenery was great, though.

Fortunately for us, the water was high enough that we were able to get back to Otter Creek. We came out much further downstream, at the cutoff to McGuirt’s Lake. We recognized a couple of key trees and signs, and knew we were back on the right path.

By this time we were getting pretty tired, so we decided to head on back without much delay. The wildlife still kept us company, but so did a couple of fishing boats. This part of the trip is very well marked with blazes, so it wasn’t as hard to follow. We even saw blazes for the turn-off to Fifty Fools Creek, should we ever try to come up the “correct” route.

At the end of Otter Creek there is a tricky turn that I’ve missed once before, and I missed it again this time. I always want to turn south toward the more open water, while the actual path is north deeper into the swamp for a bit. Fortunately, Matt was paying attention to his GPS and the blazes, and got us headed in the right direction.

This was the section we missed when we went too far south on the first part of the trip, and it’s the section I definitely DIDN’T want to miss this time. It’s the section that first made me fall in love with Sparkleberry. The huge cypress trees come together to form a cathedral. With the trees now in full leaf, the effect was even more pronounced. Everything seems magical, almost other-worldly.

Soon we were back out on Sparkleberry Flat, and headed back to the landing.

Our landmark for the canoe cut is a beat-up speed limit sign. It seems to be getting worse and worse as idiots take pot shots at it. Soon enough, though, we were back at our landing, another successful swamp trip under our belts.

According to the GPS we had traveled 8.85 miles. It seemed farther. Here’s our route as shown on Google Earth…

As usual, I took far too many photos to display here. Here is a slideshow of those photos from my Flickr account…

The radios worked great. Even though there were only four of us, and we had no trouble staying together, the radios allowed us to alert each other about wildlife without shouting it all over the swamp. These will really be useful when we have a larger group.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip, and one I’m wanting to repeat soon.

To Joy

Joy, thou beauteous godly lighting,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire drunken we are ent’ring
Heavenly, thy holy home!

Thy enchantments bind together,
What did custom stern divide;
Every man becomes a brother,
Where thy gentle wings abide.

Be embrac’d, ye millions yonder!
Take this kiss throughout the world!
Brothers—o’er the stars unfurl’d
Must reside a loving father.

–Friedrich Schiller, 1786

Last night the Greenville Chorale joined forces with the Greenville Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.  The 9th is one of my favorite pieces, and I’ve had the privilege to perform it once before.  Last night’s performance, though was one of the most stirring I’ve ever experienced.

For the Chorale, the piece came together fairly quickly.  Many of us were familiar with the music, but also the chorus doesn’t sing that much in the concert.  We’re only there for the last half of the last movement of the piece – about 20 minutes worth. Bing Vick often let us out of rehearsals early, which was a nice change of pace.

However, that is a VERY challenging 20 minutes.  First there is the range.  The piece is written at the extreme upper vocal range for all parts.  I can’t think of another piece that has the basses singing a high F as many times and as long as this one does.  Then there was the tempo set by Maestro Tchivzhel – fast, then blindingly fast.  We had to squeeze a mouthful of German syllables into such a fast pace that I don’t think any of us got all of the words correct, even in the final performance.  Oh, yeah, they had to be on the right pitches and at the right dynamic, too.  It was a bear.

Two weeks ago we began working with Maestro Tchivzhel in rehearsal. This piece’s themes of freedom and universal brotherhood have special meaning for him, having defect from Russia in 1991. From Wikipedia…

In 1991,during a month-long tour with USSR State Symphony, Tchivzhel told his host in Greenville, South Carolina, that he wanted to defect to the United States. To insure that he would have a better chance at receiving political asylum, a local attorney arranged for him to make uncomplimentary public comments about the Soviet Union to an obscure agricultural newsletter. When the symphony left from its last stop in Washington, DC, to return to Moscow, Tchivzel was whisked away by armed FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Services agents. He and his wife became U.S. citizens in 1999. At each symphony performance in Greenville, he faces the audience to conduct “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Even though Vick had prepare us for the fast tempi Tchivzhel would take, he still had lots of fine tuning. Listening to his heavy Russian accent and halting English was a challenge – Tchivzel has very specific ideas about how the music should sound, and these often are quite different from a purely chorale interpretation of the piece. Also, Tchivzhel is known for using very dramatic conducting cues, and these are often hard to translate into effective vocal production.

Somehow, though, we managed to get close enough to his music concepts, and Thursday evening we joined the GSO for our first joint rehearsal. I am usually on the front row, right next to the tympani and behind the trombones, which is fortunate because the trombones often double our part.

Even though there were the usual occasional glitches, all of our rehearsals with orchestra went very well. We had another rehearsal Friday night, with dress rehearsal Saturday morning. Saturday morning, as has gotten to be tradition, several of our group gathered for breakfast at Soby’s on the Side before heading to the Peace Center.

Hearing the piece in the hall with the orchestra, there were three sections of the piece that really stand out for me. The fourth movement opens with dissonance, a clash of ideas that continues through the first section, with hints of the “Ode to Joy” theme entering. The dissonance enters again, to be interrupted by the bass soloist declaiming, “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!”, or, “O friends, not these sounds! Let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful!” At that point the soloist launches into Schiller’s Ode to Joy.

The second dramatic point comes after an extended orchestral section. The chorus bursts into a boisterous rendition of the Schiller theme at full volume. The third section that always gets to me is the double fugue section.

Saturday night’s performance was spectacular. I love the whole 9th Symphony, especially the second movement. We got to hear it as we waited in the wings just off-stage. Right before the third movement we went on-stage, so we got to hear the third, calmer movement before it was our time to sing.

At the end of the piece there was immediate, thunderous applause. We had multiple curtain calls, and the applause seemed like it wouldn’t end. Because we had entered in the middle of the concert with the house lights down, we hadn’t been able to see that the Peace Center was packed. It was truly a stirring, emotional experience.

We capped off the evening with a very nice party/reception downtown at the Poinsett Hotel.

Today we repeat the performance this afternoon. I just hope we can sustain the same intensity. It should still be a great concert – there may still be tickets, so come on out!

Yesterday several of our schools received an invoice similar to the one above. The invoice is for a service agreement that “covers preventative maintenance on all telecom system equipment, including, [sic] telephone instruments, switches, routers, & cabling.” The bill was for $425, and since it included technology equipment, it wound up on my desk.

Of course, I had no clue what it was or from whence it had come. I keep track of all of our technology maintenance agreements, and I know all the companies with which we do business. This wasn’t one of them, and I began to smell a rat.

I checked their website, and it looked like a like a legitimate business site, offering the standard fare of switching and telephone equipment.

Still, though, I was skeptical. I know fake websites can be convincing. I called the 1-800 number on the invoice, was put on hold for about 15 minutes, then shunted into voice mail. That pretty much cemented my conviction that this was a scam, and I left voice mail stating as much.

This morning I checked with my counterparts from other districts around the state. Every one that responded said that they have received similar invoices from UST. They also pointed me to links confirming this group as a bunch of scam artists…

• Cease and Desist Order from North Dakota Attorney General for UST (PDF)
• Trustlink Comments regarding UST – most are negative
• Texas A&M Warning about Fraudulent Invoices – and a PDF example of said invoice

One of my colleagues actually got through to them on the phone, and what they were told was that this was an OFFER of services, and not an invoice.  Neither the words “invoice” nor “bill” appear on the document, but the implication is that the amount is to be paid upon receipt within “Net 30 Days,” a phrase generally reserved for an invoice.  If this was an “offer” and not an invoice, then it is intentionally deceiving.

It appears that UST was targeting public institutions, and was hoping that some bookkeeper would receive this and just go ahead and pay it.  Fortunately, our folks knew to question it, but I wonder how many around the US fell for this.  If they are so deceptive with their practices, I also have to question the quality of their maintenance “services.”

I guess with everyone now learning how to recognize, filter, and ignore spam and e-mail scams, UST decided to use good old paper and snail mail.  With e-mail so common, there seems to be an air of authority about a document you can hold in your hand.  I’m sure there were some that did fall for it.

I’ve had unscrupulous vendors attempt to scam me over the phone.  They would call offering a “sample” of a product, but when questioned, had to reveal that there was nothing free, nor free from obligation about the offer.  I’ve heard other tales of someone at a school accepting a free offer of supplies, be they technology, cleaning, or something else, only to receive exorbitant invoices later.  Our finance director told me that one company sent materials unsolicited, THEN tried to bill for those materials.  He said he dumped both the materials and the invoices in the trash.

I guess there will always be someone trying to scam the system, but it just makes my blood boil when I see it in action.  I really hope UST doesn’t get any takers on this fraudulent action, and won’t be able to cover their cost of mailing this junk.

Tuesday I had one of my quarterly meetings in Columbia with the South Carolina Association of School Administrators (SCASA) Tech Leaders’ Roundtable. I normally try to drop in to visit my mom on the way back from these trips, but this time she was out and about. So, instead, I decided to see if I could find a few spots to try out the new camera. There are a couple of neat places just off the interstate – just a quick detour away – that are full of history and scenery.

My first stop was to the west of I-26 between the towns of Little Mountain and Prosperity. I first spotted the old Wheeland School in the photo layer of Google Earth several years ago, and have made regular visits to it since then. I figured it would be a good test subject.

The old school was backlit in the late afternoon sun, so lighting conditions weren’t ideal. Even so, I think the little camera did a great job. I ran the image through ReVitalize to balance the colors and exposure a bit.

I really don’t have much information about this old school. I love the architecture, with the prominent bell tower. I haven’t been able to find anything about it on the SC Archives site. As with so many of these old schools, the building is now a community center. I was able to find a few other photos of the location being used as a polling place in the recent Republican primary, but that was all I could find.

Moving on, I crossed I-26 and headed toward the town of Peak. The Palmetto Trail crosses through Peak, and a spectacular railroad trestle across the Broad River has been incorporated into the trail. Just to the east of the town another long trestle crosses Crims Creek.

The last time I was here the trail across the creek had not been completed. Now the old SCE&G trestle has a walkway and rails across the creek. The trail then curves under the roadway bridge next to the creek, and emerges to follow the old railroad track on the other side of the road. I park the car and walked out onto the trestle for a few shots.

In the town of Peak itself there doesn’t seem to be much access to the trail. The people of Peak have seemed somewhat antagonistic to the trail, and didn’t want it coming through their town in the first place. It’s a shame they couldn’t embrace the opportunities, as Travelers Rest has done with the Swamp Rabbit Trail. I headed back out to the main road and crossed the Broad River, then turned down toward Alston Station.

The Palmetto Conservation group has done an excellent job of developing this site. There are picnic tables, a canoe/kayak launch, and a primitive camping area.

I first walked down to the launch site just to check it out. I didn’t want to do too much hiking since I was still in professional attire from my meeting. I would love to paddle this section, but the next public access point on the river is all the way down in Harbison, which would be quite a long paddle.

I climbed back up to the parking area at the entrance to the trestle and started walking out across the river. The wind was really whipping, so I didn’t walk very far out onto the bridge.

Since the last time I was here they have added some new signage. One in particular caught my eye. This sign points out the ruins of a previous rail trestle that was destroyed when Sherman’s army came through during their march from Columbia to Winnesboro. Turtles now sunned themselves on the exposed stonework.

The railroad bridge is part of the V-Line from the Southern Railway, which ran from Columbia to Greenville. These are the rails that were removed to make way for the trail. The V-line branched off from the W-line at Alston Station. The W-line is still very active, but all that remains of the old station is the locale name.

According to the Best Friend of Charleston website, the depot was purchased and moved to a private location somewhere on Lake Murray.

I continued my homeward trek, avoiding the interstate as long as possible.  I followed the Broad River Road along the west side of Parr Shoals, stopping once to admire the boat ramp on the reservoir as another possible paddling locale.  I made my way to Maybinton, which was on my list as a potential ghost town site.  Since it was already late I didn’t have much time to check it out or do much research, but I did pause to take a photo of the old Reese Mercantile store.

Overall I was very pleased with the performance of the new camera. I really like the fast lens and wide-angle capabilities. I do wish it had more zoom, but it does seem to be a good all-around camera.

I first noticed this when we made our trek to the Promised Land with Glynda and Houston. At Cedar Springs ARP Church several of the more elaborate headstone slabs in the cemetery had the carver/artist’s name inscribed at the bottom.

Then, when Dwight and his family traveled with me to Kingsville in Lower Richland County we stopped by the historic Congaree Baptist Church. There, on one of their headstones, was one of the names I had spotted at Cedar Springs – W. T. White.

Then, last Saturday on our way back from the Edisto River, Alan and I stopped by the old Pon Pon Chapel of Ease near Jacksonboro. There, at the bottom of one of the old slab stones, was the signature of J. White.

I began to wonder if W. T. White and J. White were related, and also wondered how their work became so wide-spread across South Carolina’s historic churches. Turns out they were part of a dynasty of stone carvers that did much, much more than just carving headstones.

The tale begins with Thomas Walker, a master stone carver from Scotland who came to Charleston shortly after the American Revolution. Walker was active as a stone carver from about 1790 to 1836. Walker was known for the “winged souls” motif, similar to the one in the image at the top of this post. However, he also incorporated floral and architectural images into his carvings.

Walker established a carving business in Charleston, and enlisted his family in the enterprise. His sons, David A. Walker, James E. Walker, Robert D. Walker, and William S. Walker, were active carvers up until the Civil War.

Walker’s son-in-law was John White, one of the first signature names I encountered. John White went into business with James Rowe, starting their own stone carving business. The firm of Rowe and White not only carved headstones, but was also involved in building construction. They are listed as the primary stone carvers for Robert Mills’ Fireproof Building in Charleston. Rowe and White were active from about 1819 until 1825.

John White’s son, also named John, and his grandson, William T. White, also got into the family business. John, Jr., was active from 1822-1850, and William was active from 1850-1870. Also active about the same time as William were his two brothers, Robert D. White and Edwin R. White.

Headstone carving changed to match the popular funerary art of the times. During the mid-19th Century forms other than the thin slab came into prominence, such as the broken column and obelisk. Manufacturing processes were also mechanized and streamlined. William White was listed in the census data of the time as the owner of the “Steam Marble Works”, which indicates that steam machinery was in use.

According to the Historical Marker Database…

The Walkers’ and Whites’ stones—usually cut from high-quality Italian marble, and carved with a grace and sophistication surpassing most other gravestone art in South Carolina and the rest of the region for this period—have been noted by several historians, art historians, and other scholars of historic funerary art in the Southeast. Relatively little in-depth research, however, has been conducted on the Walkers and the Whites; most of what is known is based on census records, listings in city directories, newspaper advertisements, and similar sources, and assessments of their standing are based on scholars’ familiarity with surviving examples of their work as viewed in context with the typical gravestone art of their day.

Headstones signatures were often carved with first initial and last name, but occasionally “Rowe & White” appear on some stones. Especially if the stone was intended for the Upstate, or someplace other than Charleston, the word Charleston or some form of abbreviation would be used to indicated the point of origin.

Headstones were a point of pride for a family, and an indicator of status. It’s not surprising that stones from one of the finest carving firms in Charleston would be ordered for burial sites throughout the state. Stones with one of the White signatures can be found throughout the Midlands and Upstate, as well as throughout the Lowcountry areas, with some examples even in North Carolina.

So, if you happen to find yourself in a historic church cemetery, look at the base of one of the older headstones. Chances are that it was carved by one of the Walkers or the Whites.

References

Monday morning we learned of the passing of David Pass, fellow singer and long-time manager of the Greenville Chorale.  Dave sat next to me in rehearsal for many years, and usually stood next to me in concerts.  In addition to being an excellent singer, he had a quick wit, and was always ready with a joke.

Dave picked up the nickname “Sergeant Major” because of his talent for keeping the Chorale organized and on-track.  His logistical sense made sure everyone had the music they needed, and that setups were done properly for all the concerts.  Despite the tough moniker, though, Dave was one of the most kind-hearted people you would ever meet.  Last year he took time off from his Chorale responsibilities to provide full-time care for his mother.

Dave was 63.  His absence from the Chorale was already noticeable, and we had looked forward to his return.  It’s heartbreaking to realize that he won’t back.  He truly will be missed.

This trip was supposed to have been last week. The second Saturday of the month is when our Lowcountry Unfiltered group normally hits the trail. However, an event last weekend involving most of our group caused us to postpone the trip. That freed me up to participate in the Tame the Tyger Race last weekend.

So, this weekend rolled around, and our group headed down to the Edisto River. This time we were headed to a new stretch that ended just shy of the ACE Basin. We were going to do a thirteen mile stretch from Martin’s Landing to West Bank Landing through the historic district of Jacksonboro.

I loaded up the boat and gear Thursday night and headed down as far as St. George after work Friday. The weather wasn’t looking promising, but I decided to take the chance. When I got up Saturday to head down to the river a thick fog covered the area. However, it looked like it was going to burn off later. Driving through this historic area I wanted to just stop and photograph everything, but knew I’d need to get on down to our rendezvous at the take-out. I drove on through Jacksonboro, and turned at the old Wesley United Methodist Church onto Hope Plantation Lane.

When I got to West Bank Landing, John Nelson was already there waiting. The place looked fairly nice, but there was some trash around and some graffiti.

As we were waiting for the rest of our crew, a man drove up and got out to walk his dog. He came over to talk to us, and pointed out broken glass all over the place. He said that several trucks had been broken into last weekend. He also said that Martin’s Landing wasn’t much safer. I had a bunch of stuff in my car, and was a bit nervous. I spent the rest of the wait reorganizing the gear in my car that wasn’t going on the trip so that it was less visible from outside.

Speaking of gear, because of the length of the paddle I decided to bring my big Tsunami touring boat. Normally I like my Pungo for these Edisto trips because it’s easy to get in and out, and gear is more readily accessible. Since I wouldn’t have easy access to gear, I decided to leave the big Nikon DSLR and just take my little waterproof camera and my new LX5. It would be a good chance to put it through its paces.

Soon the rest of the group arrived and we began loading up the boats for the trip back to the put-in at Martin’s Landing.

Martin’s Landing had a huge dirt parking lot. We had the place all to ourselves. There was a boat ramp, but also a nice little cove area for launching.

There would be seven of us on this trip. Before launching we posed for our traditional group portrait.

The river at this point is much wider than other sections we had paddled. We launched and headed on downstream. There was also not very much current, so we were pretty much under our own power for most of the trip.

And so began a first for the LCU Paddlers. Alan and I have referred to the group as the “ADD Paddlers”, easily distracted by rope swings, interesting channels, and any sand bar where they might find shark’s teeth or other fossils. In this case, we were about to start a four hour stretch where none of us got out of our boats.

Not that there weren’t distractions. There were lots of interesting side channels. These narrower channels often proved more interesting, with cypress trees and overhanging moss.

There were a few houses along this stretch, and we encountered a few small motor boats. However, for the most part the banks were fairly wild. We saw a couple of snakes, and one osprey flying off with a fish.

There were oxbows and side-channel lakes that also kept us busy.

We were starting to get hungry. It was lunch time, and we hadn’t found a place to stop. Both a sandbar I had seen in Google Earth and an island further down were overgrown with weeds, and looked a bit unstable. Before we knew it, we were at the Highway 17 bridge and Jacksonboro. We had already covered about 2/3 of the trip.

Just past the bridge we found a suitable place to land – a historic landing covered with old cobblestones. Matt said that at low water levels you could see old ship ballast in the river.

We were making very good time, so several of us decided to paddle back upstream to another side swamp and check it out. John and Kyle decided to hang back and rest a bit more. We felt OK doing that because we had radios with us this time. These worked out so well that we’ve decided to make them standard equipment for all our future trips.

Back under the bridge and on river right another channel wound back into the cypress swamp. A nature trail leads from Highway 17 back to the river.

There was one more bridge – railroad trestle. At this point tidal currents overtake river currents as the main influence on the river. The outgoing tide was really ripping, and it was the first time we could float and expect to me downstream. Behond the bridge the nature of the river seemed to change. There were more houses and more boats. Jet skis zipped around us.

Matt and I had one more distraction. There was a level 5 difficulty geocache on the river, not far from us. An old barge, locally known as “Leroy’s Barge” had sunk in the river, forming an island that was now overgrown. The geocache was hidden on the upstream side of the island. On the downstream side a collection of boats had tied up and an impromptu river party was underway.

At this point we were starting to get tired. There were even more jet skis and boats creating wake. However, even more problematic was the wind, which now tended to counteract the outgoing tide. The last half mile got incredibly windy, and the waves were so high I almost felt like I was back on the Tyger River.

We pulled up to the landing, as did the jet skiers. Fortunately, it looked like our cars were still intact, as was our paddling group. We pulled the boats out and waited from Matt and Kyle to get back with the trailer. As we waited a father and young son pulled their boat out and also showed us the fish they had caught.

The trip was 13.2 miles, but we had added to that with side trips into lakes and channels. We loaded up our boats and said our goodbyes until the next time.

However, Alan and I weren’t through with our adventures. We had a couple of stops along the road back to the Upstate. Alan had never been to Pon Pon Chapel, so we stopped by there first.

There were a couple of country churches that had caught Alan’s eye on the way in. We stopped by Mt. Calvary Baptist Church…

…and Bethlehem Baptist Church…

The weather had held off, and we had a great day on the river and exploring the area. It was another excellent Lowcountry Unfiltered paddling trip. Here are the rest of the photos from the trip…

My new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 arrived yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to really put it through its paces, but so far I’m impressed with the few photos I have taken. The LX5 won out over a whole slew of contenders, and the decision to get it means a new strategy for my day-to-day photography.

The contenders included the following:

• An exact replacement of my S70 in the form of a refurbished S70
• An updated Coolpix, such as the S100
• A different small camera, such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10
• The Canon S100
• and the one I bought, the Panasonic LX5

Two things shifted me toward the larger, more feature-filled options on the list.  First, I had tried the Nikon S cameras, and really was ready for something else.  Secondly, the other camera on my list, the Panasonic ZS10, really got marked down for image quality in reviews.

But, more importantly, I had already shifted away from using a pocket camera.  I got my first little camera, the Nikon S1 (image above on left), before camera phones were decent.  I kept it in my pocket all the time until the screws started to fall out, and the camera wouldn’t turn on anymore.

The camera in the middle, a Nikon Coolpix S50, suffered a similar fate. It started to fall apart in my pocket like the S1. Even more so, in fact. The sides started to fall off, and the battery cover wouldn’t stay latched unless I wrapped a rubber band around the camera.

When Laura gave me the next one in the series, the S70, for Christmas one year, I decided to take better care if it, and not let it get banged up against the keys, knives, and other paraphernalia in my pockets. I always had the S70 nearby, but I was no longer using it as a pocket camera.

So, if I wasn’t going to keep the camera in my pocket, I could look at something a bit larger. The Canon S100 and the LX5 were those candidates. The S100 is newer and has more bells and whistles, including a GPS, but the LX5, which came out in 2010, won out hands down on speed and image quality. Plus, my brother Houston and friend Dwight own one, and highly recommended it.

The LX5 is almost exactly the same camera as the Leica D-Lux 5. They both have fast f/2.0 lenses,a nd pretty much the same specs across the board. The only difference is the name badge, and that Leica badge will cost you about twice as much as the Panasonic. It’s kind of like Honda and Acura, or Toyota and Lexus. In the image below the Leica is on the left and the Panasonic is on the right.

And here’s the LX5 as compared to my old S70…

I’ve only had a chance to take a few shots with the camera so far, but the ones I’ve taken are very sharp and noise-free. I’ll have to put it through its paces when I get a chance. I’ll write more about it one I get a chance to do that.

For lunch I decided to stop at our nearby hibachi chicken place. This was the fortune in my cookie. Of course, I had to eat it.

I snapped the photo with my iPhone, and was surprise at how well it turned out. What really punched it up, though, was the application of a photo filter in Aviary.

Which brings us to the issue of Aviary and Picnic. For many years if you wanted to edit photos online in Flickr, Picnic was the way to go. It was offered as a menu option in Flickr, and had some basic editing and enhancement tools in the free version, and more filters and other editing tools in the paid filter.

Aviary, on the other hand, was an excellent suite of multimedia tools, encompassing music editing as well as image editing. It was pretty much browser-based, but stand-alone from other hosting options.

Then came Instagram, and everything changed. People got hooked on using vintage filters to quickly change photos from an expensive camera into something that looks like it was taken with a cheap camera.  Effects that used to require Photoshop and some technical expertise could be replicated in seconds with Instagram’s filters.  It seemed everyone wanted in on the action.

Then there was Google.  Google entered into a partnership with Picnic back in 2010. The only problem is that Flickr’s parent company, Yahoo, is Google’s competitor. Flickr’s relationship with Picnic was now …awkward. Early this year Picnic announced that it was shutting down its stand-alone service, as well as the integration with Flickr, in order to concentrate on projects with Google. I guess we could have seen that one coming.

Google began incorporating parts of Picnic into Picasa and its revamped Google+. Picasa references the old version of Picnic, as seen in this screenshot…

…which also shows that Picnic will shut down on April 19.

Google+ calls image editing the “Creative Kit”, but it’s still Picnic, as seen in these screen shots…

Both the built-in editing tools in Picasa and the online Creative Kit have quick filters and simple editing, similar to those offered in Instagram.

Recently Aviary released new apps for smart phones which have editing capabilities very much like Instagram. If you go to their main website you now see information about those mobile apps. A little side banner takes you to the original suite of multimedia editing tools.

Having lost Picnic, Flickr turned to Aviary and incorporated their editing tools into its service.

As with Instagram and Creative Kit/Picnic, Aviary now offers quick filters for moody and vintage effects.

Aviary’s old multimedia suite was Flash-based, which meant it couldn’t be used on tablets. The new version is HTML-5, which means that it can be used on iPads and other tablets. Flickr has been touting this as a positive in having to trade Picnic for Aviary.

Personally, I like both Aviary and Picnic. I haven’t seen anything to really make the current version of one stand out over the other. I use each according to the service I happen to be in at the time, whether Flickr or Google+. I still use Photoshop for most of my post-processing, and Pixlr is still an excellent online photo-editing tool that works with both of these services. I’ll be curious to see how Picnic re-images itself in Picasa after April 19.

But back to my fortune cookie…here is the original image:

Not bad for a camera phone, but I wanted to punch it up a bit. I added the “Indiglow” filter in Aviary to increase the contrast on the text, create a black frame, and add a bit of vignetting. I could have done all of this in Photoshop, but it would have taken awhile. Quick and easy. So easy, in fact, that Laura asked why I needed a new camera at all, and couldn’t I just stick with my iPhone.

Or perhaps, too quick and easy? The problem I see is that there are very few of these filters on each service, and they tend to be used quite a bit. It’s also easy to overdo it, or to use a filter on a photo for which it’s just not appropriate. Just like when every photo seemed to be HDR-processed, now just about every photo has some vintage Instagram-ish filter applied. It’s a fad, and it will soon fall out of favor just like heavily-processed HDR photos did.

On the other hand, if you’ve got a photo that would benefit from some post-processing, such as my fortune cookie, and you find the right filter in an easy-to-apply editor, it sure is nice to have quick editing options like Aviary and Picnic available.