Random Connections – Page 97 – A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

LCU vs Manchester

January 16, 2013 Tom No Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling, Restaurants

It sounds like a collegiate soccer game. We had about enough people with us to field a team. However, in truth it was Lowcountry Unfiltered’s Second Saturday outing. This being January, it was time for our annual Swamp Stomp, and we were off to tackle a section of the Wateree Passage of the Palmetto Trail through Manchester State Park.

Our outing would take us through ghost towns, cemeteries, and the site of Civil War destruction at the hands of Colonel Edward Potter. This was truly and epic outing, and the only way to do it justice is to break it into sections, so consider this Part 1.

Keith met me at the house far too early for a Saturday. Along the way down we picked up Alan and Dwight, so I had a car full. The Upstate would be well-represented on this trip.

We had a fairly loose agenda, but our plan was to meet for breakfast then explore the area. Here’s a quick rundown of the trip…

Tactical Macramé

January 11, 2013 Tom 2 Comments

Gear

Back when I was a cub scout one of our crafty things to do was to make lanyards from bits of plastic strips. Tandy Leather sold (and still sells) the stuff by the spool. I got pretty good at various braids, and made several lanyards that never really got used.

Fast forward 40+ years…

Braiding with strips of stuff is back. It even made its way into 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite…

Deb: Well, maybe you’d be interested in some home-woven handicrafts?

Deb: … And here we have some boondoggle key chains. A must-have for this season’s fashion.
Napoleon Dynamite: I already made like infinity of those at scout camp.

This season’s fashion, though, uses parachute cord, aka 550 paracord instead of plastic stripping. The height of fashion seems to be the “survival bracelet”. I had seen these at outfitter stores, and even at the occasional quick stop shop, but didn’t pay much attention until I was given one at the EdTech conference back in October. I’ve been wearing mine since then, more as an uplifting reminder than for any need for an emergency supply of parachute cord.

Flickr Video Artifacts

January 9, 2013 Tom 2 Comments

Photography, Rants

Flickr has its flaws, and has come in for some warranted criticism from photographers such as Thomas Hawk in San Francisco for its management practices and failure to keep up with Google+ and other photo-sharing communities. However, I find it a cost-effective service that still meets my needs for both blogging and photography. At last count I have nearly 19,000 images on Flickr.

There is one flaw in Flicker that has really jumped out recently, though. That’s with it’s video compression routines. Video uploaded to Flickr looks horrible. Period.

I’m more of a photographer than videographer. I don’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of video compression, etc., etc. I also get that Flickr is primarily a photo sharing site, and has limited functionality as far as video uploads are concerned. However, there are some times that it’s quicker and easier to upload to Flickr. I also like the control over privacy, which tends to be an all-or-nothing proposition with YouTube and other video hosting.

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Charleston Magazine – A Retraction and Apology

January 6, 2013 Tom No Comments

Photography

OK, my apologies to Charleston Magazine. I had complained that they didn’t credit my photo when they used the photo in their January issue of the magazine. It turns out, they did. The credit was actually in the fold of the page. It was tiny, tiny, tiny, and I certainly missed it until my sister-in-law … Read More “Charleston Magazine – A Retraction and Apology” »

A Jesus-Filled Chain Letter

January 2, 2013 Tom 5 Comments

History and Genealogy, Miscellaneous, Weirdness

Had a bit of serendipity…I was doing some research for an upcoming photo/hiking expedition. I was looking at an edition of Columbia’s The Daily Phoenix from 1868 for information on the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad. The article was on the front page, and by itself was just a short notice about the finances of the railroad.

The article that took up all of the first column and part of the second was not one I would have expected. It was entitled “Jesus Christ’s Letter”, and it described a letter that was supposedly found “under a Great Stone, sixty-five years after the Crucifixion of our blessed Savior, eighteen miles from Iconium…” The letter starts out by saying that anyone who doesn’t keep the Sabbath will be cursed, and that everyone should go to church. There were other various injunctions, curses, and blessings on a variety of topics. At the end end of the letter it states that anyone who keeps a copy of this letter and publish it would be blessed.

Two Historic Cemeteries and a Mill

January 1, 2013 Tom 2 Comments

Photography, Rambling

A winter holiday, and I was itching to get out and do some exploring. I had a new camera to try out, and wanted to put it through its paces. Unfortunately, I couldn’t roam too far. Fellow explorer Alan came over, and we found a nice compromise. We headed over to the Pelham area to explore the old mill and Ebenezer Methodist Church.

Pelham Mill

Pelham Mill Park is one of my favorite photography destinations. There are lots of textures, water, and interesting structures for subject matter. I’ve visited in the past by myself and with fellow photographer Karen B. This was Alan’s first time visiting the park, as I was glad to have another newbie who might see something I had missed.

This site on the Enoree River was the location of one of the first cotton mills in the area. It reached its peak production in the years following the Civil War, and by the turn of the century employed 250 people and ran 10,000 spindles. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1940, leaving only the dam across the river, some foundations, and part of the old brick power station. The old mill office was across Highway 14 from the main part of the mill, and also survived.

GoPro Time-Lapse – More Lessons Learned

December 29, 2012 Tom 1 Comment

Gear, Photography

I’ve been having fun playing with the little GoPro camera. It has some quirks, but it’s great for what it’s designed to do. Of course, one of the things I’ve been using it for mostly is time-lapse. I’ve learned lots of things about this little camera, and about time-lapse in general. I can add these to my growing list of lessons learned about time-lapse.

Lesson 1 – Christmas Dinner Videos

As with leaf blowing/raking videos, it seems that everyone does Christmas dinner time lapse videos, too. There were tons of suggestions and recommendations on the page with my Christmas video, and they all had similar titles. Here’s a playlist with 10 samples…

So, the lesson here is that whatever I may come up with for a video project, someone has already done it and uploaded it to YouTube.

Published Again (without credit)

December 28, 2012 Tom 4 Comments

Photography, Rants

UPDATE: A correction can be found here. Back in early November I was contacted by the artistic editor for the Charleston Magazine about using the above photograph in their January issue. I agreed, provided that they gave me credit as the photography, and sent specific instructions on what I wanted on the credit line. On … Read More “Published Again (without credit)” »

Christmas Gear

December 26, 2012 Tom No Comments

Family, Gear, Photography

This year we spent Christmas in Greenville. Instead of traveling to Florida like we usually do, Laura’s sister and mother came up to visit us. The foggy Christmas morning was spent opening gifts and relaxing.

Since I’ve been so obsessed with time-lapse lately, I decided to do one of our gift giving routine. Here’s a short video…

The entire video was created on an iPad 2. I used the iMotion app shot a 1 frame every five seconds. I used the Garage Band app and an Akai LPK25 keyboard to record the music, and I used the iMovie app to add titles and mix everything together.

Stumphouse Tunnel and Tunnel Hill

December 19, 2012 Tom 14 Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling

This is part three of our day of adventure. It started in the wee morning hours on Bald Rock viewing the Geminid Meteor Shower, followed by the search for the ghost town Mayucha. Keith and I found some breakfast, and headed north on Highway 28 to find the ghost town of Tunnel Hill, located near the Stumphouse Tunnel.

I had been to Stumphouse Tunnel many times. However, Keith had not. My real goal was not the tunnel, but a spot on the mountain on top of the tunnel. One online source described a cemetery and several foundations – all that remains of the former town of Tunnel Hill. I was hoping to find those.

A Wee Bit of History…

The Blue Ridge Railroad Company was conceived in the mid-1800’s as a way to transfer goods from South Carolina to Knoxville, Tennessee. It was a grand plan, with multiple tunnels and impressive bridges across the Blue Ridge mountains. The “easy” part of the railroad was completed from Anderson to Pendleton, and in the 1850s construction was started on the three tunnels that would be on the South Carolina portion of the railroad.

Tunnel Hill sprang up at the top of the longest tunnel on Stumphouse Mountain. It largely housed the Irish immigrants working on the tunnels. By all accounts it was a violent place, with saloons outnumbering other businesses, and frequent clashes between the Irish workers and the locals who thought that jobs were being usurped by the newcomers. Historian Jim Haughy recounts a description of the town by Rev. J. J. O’Connell, who visited the town in 1854…

Practically all the dwellings were flimsy wooden frame structures that provided little shelter from the elements. While miners with families lived in primitive cabins, unmarried miners often lodged in boarding shanties provided by other railroad workers and their families.

– “Tunnel Hill: An Irish Mining Community in the Western Carolinas”, presented at The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association 2004

O’Connell decried the free flowing alcohol, and in addition to establishing St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in the village, he was instrumental in forming the St. Patrick’s Temperance Society to get rid of the saloons and improve life in the town.