Author: Tom

Wet Saturday Ramble

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Photography, Rambling

Alan and I had planned to take our boats out for a quick Saturday morning paddle.  Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating, so we had to fall back to Plan B.  Alan is as much of a rambler and photographer as I am, so we decided to hit a couple of places locally that he knew about.  The quick trek to us to some interesting remnants of Greenville.

We started the morning discussion talking about hidden and forgotten cemeteries in town.  That might be worthy of a blog post/exploration all on its own.  Alan mentioned on just off of Haywood Road.  We were able to find it in Google Maps, right next to the distinctive lavender building that houses The Trophy Club strip joint.  I’m sure the original owners of the cemetery would be appalled at the disruption to eternal rest. 🙂  We decided to check it out (the cemetery, not the strip club.)

Laurel Creek Cemetery

Finding the cemetery was easy.  It’s not on a major traffic route, but it is right there in the middle of everything.  It’s hard to miss if you’re looking in the right place.  Unfortunately, the grounds were surrounded by chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire with locked gates.  Any observing we were going to do would have to be done from outside.

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Mountain Wedding Weekend

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Mountain Wedding Weekend
Family, Photography
Lauren and Daniel's Wedding
Lauren and Daniel’s Wedding
Shot with a GoPro Camera

And so the day arrives…

Lauren and Daniel’s wedding weekend started with rehearsal on Friday. Laura and I drove up about mid-afternoon and checked into the lovely cottage Stephen had reserved for us near Hendersonville, then headed on over to Brevard for the rehearsal.

Lauren had selected Rainbow Lake as her wedding venue. The resort features several rustic cottages surrounding a small lake, in between Brevard and Rosman. There is a small island with a gazebo, obviously set up for the ceremony. A short white wooden bridge connects to the mainland. There is also a pavilion for receptions.

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Here Comes Uncle George and Uncle Bob

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Family, Photography
Uncle Bob
Photo from Stephen Leung Photography
http://stephenleung.net

My niece is getting married tomorrow. We’re all happy for her, and this is an exciting time for our family, as well a wedding should be. There’s just one snag, though. She’s asked me and my brother to do the photography for her wedding. While, I’m thrilled she has confidence in our abilities, and I’m glad to be a part of the wedding, to say that I have a bit of trepidation about this would be an understatement.  And with good reason.

Among professional wedding photographers (of which I am most definitely not), there is the legend of “Uncle George.” Sometimes he’s known as “Uncle Bob,” but it could just as easily be an “Aunt Betty.” Regardless of the form this character takes, the term refers to any relative that insists on taking all the photos along with the assigned photographer. Here’s a description from one website…

The bride’s Uncle George fancies himself as a better-than-average amateur photographer. In fact photography may be his hobby. He comes armed with the latest cameras and fancy lens. Empowered by digital cameras and a bag full of extra fully powered batteries, he is ready for action. His technique is to capture anything that moves, time and time again. Quantity not quality is his mantra. He trusts that his Photoshop software can dress up any image. – From http://timelessweddingmemories.com

To be fair, most of the references I’ve seen to “Uncle George” have been on websites for professional photographers, who would prefer that you use their services rather than a relative. Several have lists comparing their services to “Uncle George” in chart format. One photographer even lists an “Uncle George” package on his website…

The Uncle George Package … Here’s what it includes.

  • I will bring one camera, one battery and maybe 2 memory cards for my semi-high end camera that I kind of know how to use.
  • I will shoot by myself.
  • I’ll show up 30 minutes late.
  • I’ll rely upon the camera to decide exposures and focusing. I will call the out of focus shots “artistic”.
  • Since I’m a friend or relative I will visit with the other guests instead of concentrating on the photography.
  • I will plan on drinking and dancing.
  • I may get drunk (there’s $50 discount if I do).
  • If my battery holds out, I should get 100 to 150 shots.
  • I know very little about post production of images, so I won’t correct or Photoshop the images. So I’ll just give you the photos “as shot”, and it may be a couple of months before you see the those (along with my vacation shots I left on the card).

I would like to think that I’m a step up from George.  I’ve taken multiple post-processing courses and courses in portraiture and other areas.  Houston has even more experience than I do, having worked as a professional photographer for awhile.  Even so, I don’t want to wind up like this…

Uncle Bob

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Paddling Bear Creek Lake

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Paddling Bear Creek Lake
Paddling, Photography
Bear Creek Lake
Bear Creek Lake

I’ve been wanting to paddle Bear Creek Lake ever since I discovered its existence. I first heard of the lake when the Western Carolina Kayaking Meetup scheduled a trip up there. I couldn’t make that trip, but the missed opportunity nagged at me. This summer on one of my photo treks I stumbled upon the landing for Bear Creek Lake. Seeing it in person made me want to come up here even more. So, when WCKayaking announced another trip, I knew I had to go.

In the 1950’s the Nantahala Power and Light Company built four lakes along the Bear Creek Valley. Bear Creek Lake is the largest of these, and is just a bit larger than Lake Cunningham near Greer. Cliff Lake, Wolf Creek Lake, and Tamassee Creek Lake round out the quartet. Cliff Lake is downstream from Bear Creek Lake, and the other two were built on tributary creeks to Bear Creek. The entire watershed feeds into the Tuckaseegee River. The lakes are now controlled by Duke Power.

Unlike Lakes Glenville and Toxaway nearby, there is not much development along these lakes. The views of the high hills and rocks remain somewhat pristine. However, I’m afraid that will change. I don’t know if there are any easements or protections in place as there are at Lake Jocassee, but I saw signs for various realtors and development. I hope they don’t destroy the lake shores as they did at Toxaway and some of the South Carolina lakes like Keowee, Hartwell, Murray, and Greenwood.

The plan was to meet at the launch at 11:00 am, a reasonable time, in my opinion. It gave me plenty of time to get up there and explore a bit first. The drive up is spectacular, winding through the highlands of South Carolina then crossing up to Cashiers, then passing the much larger Glenville Lake. The lake itself is off of Highway 281, past a farming valley formed by the Tuckaseegee River and Bear Creek.

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The Kingdom of Stuff You Don’t Need

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on The Kingdom of Stuff You Don’t Need
Local, Photography, Rambling

Pickens Flea Market-14

Yep, I made another mid-week trek over to the Pickens Flea Market. It was a beautiful day, and I headed over there just because I could. I was curious as to how the place changes on a non-summer, non-holiday Wednesday.

According to their Facebook page, the flea market is open from 4:00 am until 2:00 pm every Wednesday. I can’t imagine being here before dawn, but I guess some of the vendors need that time to get set up. I have gotten here as early as 7:30, and the vendors were still setting up. I think the “sweet spot” as far as time is from 8:00 until 11:00. By 11:00 many of the vendors are already packing up for home.

Normally I park at one end and head west. Usually I run out of steam by the time I get to the other side, so this time I parked closer to the other end. It seemed much sparser at this end on this particular Wednesday. Much of the covered area wasn’t occupied, but there were still quite a few open-air vendors. Everything seemed more spread out, with little pockets of vendors in remote corners.

I think this is the newer section. A chain link fence runs down the middle of the market, dividing it in half. It’s possible that the two halves are managed separately, but I’m not sure about that. One must pass through a rather narrow, congested gate to get from one half to the other. That may just give them the ability to open only a part of the market if necessary. (Pure speculation here.)

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In Search of Andersonville and a Retreat

Posted on By Tom 5 Comments on In Search of Andersonville and a Retreat
Photography, Rambling
Old Retreat Prebyterian Church and Cemetery-029
Old Retreat Presbyterian Church
Oconee County, SC

Stephen and I had the day open on Friday, so we decided to do a bit of photo rambling. I’ve been wanting to explore the environs of Andersonville, one of the ghost towns on my list, and from there it would be one of our typical rambles, with multiple stops along the way.

Old Andersonville is now mostly under Lake Hartwell. There is a two mile island where some of the town had been located. We didn’t expect to see much of the ghost town on this trip, but were mainly scouting access points for a future kayak trip out to the island.

I picked up Stephen at his house in Easley, then we headed down 178 toward Anderson. As with all of our rambles something catches our eye, and we have to stop. In this case it was the community around Lebanon Baptist Church. A small country store, a couple of sheds, and an old school were located in the vicinity of the church.

Lebanon Shed
Lebanon School

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Simple Laser Oscilloscope

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Simple Laser Oscilloscope
Music, Science

Many, many years ago I was teaching gifted and talented seventh graders. One of the units of study was “Sight and Sound.” We did cool physics-related experiments, including setting up a darkroom in the basement of the gym, building pinhole cameras, and developing our own photos (back before the days of MDS sheets and fears of lawsuits over anything chemical-related)…

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Pinhole Automobile

…turning an old piano into a hand bell-like instrument using popsicle sticks, fishing line and violin bow resin, building a walk-in camera obscura, and programming a Bach chorale into four old Tandy 1000 computers. In short, it explored two of my favorite things – photography and music.

One of the things we created was a simple laser oscilloscope. I had seen this at Discovery Place in Charlotte, and wanted to replicated it in my classroom. In the days before cheap laser pointers, I had bought a helium-neon laser for some of our class projects. Using that laser, an old speaker, and a music synthesizer, we were able to construct something that would work.

Fast forward 25 years or so…

Earlier this summer I was playing with our cats, using a toy laser pointer. The cats go crazy chasing the little red dot. It occurred to me that I could recreate my project from long ago with this simple pointer.

Laser Oscilloscope-002

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