Local – Page 15 – Random Connections

Flea Markets and Falls

April 24, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom No Comments

Glynda has been recovering from surgery, and is making great progress. For the first time in ages she had energy to get out and about and explore, so she suggested that we go to the regular Wednesday gathering at the Pickens Flea Market. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, so who was I to say no?

We left out early and arrived at the flea market shortly after 8:00 am. Even at that time there were already crowds gathered. We wandered among the booths and looked at the goods. Since I’d had success with my 35mm lens on yesterday’s Earth Day trek, I decided to use it here, too. I had my Panasonic as a backup.

For the most part it was the same old same old. There were the random collections of antiques, toys, bottles, etc. etc. I noticed that a lot of my shots are starting to look the same. It’s hard to find something unique.

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Live Steam

April 14, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 3 Comments

Local, Miscellaneous, Photography

Model Steam Trains-47 — Sandy River Narrow Gauge Engine

Last week fellow singer and explorer Tommy Thompson had been invited to tag along with one of his friends, Steve Baker, as they visited Jim Pitts, retired chaplain of Furman University and expert on live steam model railroading. I knew Jim from when I was a student at Furman, and we’ve have kept up with each other through Laura in the many years since then. Tommy invited me to come with them as a tag-along tag along. I jumped at the chance.

We started with breakfast at the Travelers Rest Inn, then headed on up to Jim Pitts’ house in Travelers Rest. Steve was running a bit late, so Jim invited us in and gave us a tour of his extensive collection. The first room we entered had shelves lining the walls and cases with multiple types of model engines. Jim gave us a running description of each.

Steve arrive in time to join us for coffee and doughnuts, after which Jim took us out to see the rest of his collection. We thought we had already seen it, but there was a separate garage out back with even more trains.

Taylors Renaissance Revisited

April 5, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 1 Comment

Entertainment, Local, Photography

Last week I visited a new coffee shop in the old Southern Bleachery Mills in Taylors. This week I noticed that they were going to have live music Friday night, and that the artist studios I had seen on that last visit would be open for First Friday. After dinner in Greer, Laura and I decided to check it out.

At first she was quite skeptical. I took the back way, following Chick Springs Road from Greer into Taylors. It worked perfectly, but Laura had no clue where we were going. Her skepticism increased when I drove onto the old mill property. However, when she saw all the cars and activity, that skepticism diminished.

Due South Coffee was hopping. They had opened two of the large garage doors leading into their space, and we could hear the music all over the parking lot. However, we decided to check out the art studios first.

Taylors Renaissance and Textures

March 27, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 3 Comments

Local, Photography, Restaurants

Taylors Mill-39 — Taylors Mill with Texture

As most readers by now know, I am fascinated with old ghost towns. However, what I like even more is when I find an area that was previously in decay now coming back to life. Such is the case with the old Taylors Mill in downtown Taylors.

The phrase “downtown Taylor’s may not have much meaning to Greenvillians. Most think of Taylors as a nebulous area somewhere on the Eastside of town before you get to Greer. There is actually a downtown area, just off of Wade Hampton Boulevard, beyond Taylors First Baptist Church. There are a few storefronts, but the most prominent features are the old Taylors High School, now converted into a Fine Arts Academy and Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the old Taylors Textile Mill.

Composite Greenville History

February 28, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 5 Comments

History and Genealogy, Local, Photography

On our latest Lowcountry Unfiltered trip down to Bonneau Ferry I enjoyed creating some composite images from old photographs. These show a historic photo of of the plantation superimposed over a present-day photo. The photos proved popular, and I wondered if I could do more with local historic photos.

I love historic photos. I’m a sucker for those little historic images books from Arcadia Press. When I first got involved with multimedia design for the classroom, one of my first projects was to create an interactive display comparing historic images of Greenville taken from the same vantage point over time.

Finding suitable images can be tricky. Copyright issues aside, I could scan the images from my books, but I’d prefer to find something available online. The best, most extensive collection is the Coxe Collection. The Greenville Historical Society has those locked away, available only at low resolution and watermarked to hell and back. The Library of Congress has some good images, as do the South Carolina Digital Library collection and the Greenville County Library.

Recently I discovered that Greenville History Tours had been posting some cool photos of Greenville on their Facebook page. Some of these were perfect for my project, and I spent one afternoon greedily downloading images from their site.

Thursday of this week was a beautiful day, and seemed like a perfect opportunity to put my project to the test. I printed out copies of the historic images so that I could try to line up my photos with the original. I think some of these turned out quite well. I’m going to be posting larger than usual images in this post because of the nature of the project, so I apologize ahead of time to the bandwidth-challenged.

Picker’s Paradise in Newberry

February 4, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 2 Comments

Family, Local, Miscellaneous

Two times in less than a week I’ve been drawn in by an “as seen on TV” sign. First time was a rather bad experience at a restaurant in Gaffney. This time, C. T. Summer Hardware Store in Newberry turned out to be a real winner.

It was my sister, Beth’s birthday, so Glynda and I drove down to take her out to eat. We had dropped by Prosperity to pick up our mother, and then drove back to meet Beth at The Cabana Cafe. We had a great lunch (sorry, no cafe review this time) and were surprised by Beth’s son, Mason, who had come in for lunch during his work day.

During lunch Beth mentioned that we needed to check out the hardware store next door. I had spotted antiques in the window, and had seen the “American Pickers” sign on the front window. Having been burned once recently by a TV show advertisement, I was skeptical. Glynda and I said we would be back on a less cold and rainy day. Mother, on the other hand, said she wanted to go right after lunch. Looks like we were visiting a hardware store.

Watching the Towers Fall

January 19, 2014 Tom No Comments

Local

A couple of weeks ago I got a text from my nephew, Chip, stating that a prominent Greenville Landmark was going to meet its demise. The Scott Towers on Augusta Road were to be imploded. I knew I had to be there.

The towers were built in 1972, and have been a prominent building on the skyline for as long as I can remember. Apart from that, I really don’t know much about them. As long as I’ve known about the towers, they have served as housing for elderly and disabled citizens, but I’m not sure if that’s the original intent of the building.

When Scott Towers was constructed, The Bell Tower Mall was still an active shopping area. New office buildings were being constructed. It was a hot growth area, along with Pleasantburg Drive near McAlister Square, and the Wade Hampton Mall near Bob Jones University. These were the Woodruff Roads and Haywood Roads of their day. Perhaps it was a good idea to provide housing like this near a vibrant shopping area.

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Upstate Christmas Light Spectacular

December 19, 2013December 19, 2013 Tom No Comments

Local, Miscellaneous

Laura and I love Christmas lights. Each year we go on several expeditions around our area to seek out those over-the-top displays. This year, though, with the help of social media and one particular website, we were able to streamline our search, making our light treks more efficient.

First Outing – from Fountain Inn Northward

I’ve already documented our trek to Pacolet and the lights we found there and along the way. Over the weekend we headed down to Fountain Inn to see their lights. One neighborhood always puts out luminarias and has a series of elegant displays. Unfortunately, we were prevented from entering the neighborhood by a local policewoman. She said that only residents were being allowed in. If we wanted to see the lights, we would have to buy tickets to ride through on a horse-drawn carriage. We decided to skip.

Fortunately, there were lots of nice lights along Main Street north of town. We enjoyed these as we drove from Fountain Inn on up toward Simpsonville. Here we found a couple of good displays. Down in the Powderhorn neighborhood there was one house decorated from top to bottom. Just north of Powderhorn is the neighborhood of Poinsettia. With a name like that, you know that they have to do something for Christmas. There were quite a few elegant displays, and a few excessive light displays.

From Simpsonville we continued north, then turned onto Highway 14. Just across from the Heritage Lakes subdivision there was a small neighborhood that also had some great lights. All in all it was a good outing. We had seen some good lights, but we wanted more. That required a bit of planning.

Time Lapse Workshop

December 17, 2013 Tom No Comments

Local, Photography

Jack Daniels Davis leads the Time Lapse Workshop

This past Sunday the Upstate Photography Meetup held a workshop on time lapse photography. I had not been to many of the group’s gatherings lately, but since this is one of my interests, I decided to attend.

Readers of this blog will know that I’ve done quite a few experiments with time-lapse already. However, I wanted to get some more ideas. I had some specific thing that I wanted to see discussed, assuming the workshop format would allow for such things. These questions were as follows:

How do you handle changing lighting conditions throughout the course of a time-lapse – for example, while shooting a sunrise or sunset?
What inexpensive techniques for panning are available, apart from purchasing a motorized dolly system?

Apart from that, I wasn’t sure what to expect. 23 photographers had signed up for the workshop, which was going to be led by Jack Daniels Davis. Jack had divided the attendees into five groups based on the type of cameras they had. That way each group would be working with similar hardware. At least, that was the theory. The event was taking place at Jade Castle Studio, a new endeavor on Augusta Street that hopes to become a hub for artists.

Quick Trip to Townville and Environs

December 14, 2013 Tom No Comments

Local, Photography, Rambling

Townville Sofa with Texture — Porch Sofa in Townville, SC

Wednesday morning was a portentous day for my friend Ken. He was closing on his house, taking the dive into home ownership. I accompanied Ken to his closing, and helped celebrate with a toast at his abode.

Both of us had most of the day open, so we grabbed cameras, grabbed a quick lunch (at an excellent sandwich shop in Clemson, I might add), then headed out to explore.