Photography – Page 13 – Random Connections

Brothers Retreat at Jocassee – Part Four

March 27, 2012 Tom No Comments

And so it was only two of us left. Chip had to get back to family, and Stephen had to get back to church. Houston and I got up, had a quick breakfast, then packed up the mountain of remaining food and gear into our trucks. At the Devil’s Fork State Park store we checked out and each bought souvenirs. We both bought copies of Claudia Hembree’s “Jocassee Valley” book, and I bought two more stickers for my kayak.

Sometimes after weekend like this it’s nice to step back and do an overview. We decided to do that quite literally. We left the park and headed up Highway 130 toward the Bad Creek Project. We had taken Laura’s mom up here for a picnic sometime back, and it has fantastic views of Lake Jocassee. This time, on our way up, we encountered a family of turkeys.

At the overlook itself we had clear views of the places we had paddled the day before. We could see where the Whitewater River enters the lake, and even had a view of the Lower Falls. We could also see where we had stopped for lunch and other places along our paddle route.

Brothers Retreat at Jocassee – Part Three

March 27, 2012 Tom No Comments

Family, Paddling

As we suspected, after our long haul we were not going to be up for a late-night trip. Our nephew, Chip, joined us after work, and we set about the task of putting together dinner. It seems that each of us had brought enough snacks for all of us. There was more food than the four of us could possibly eat. Stephen had prepared venison spaghetti for us, and we followed that up sitting out on the deck of the villa telling family tales and enjoying the evening in general.

The next morning we took our time getting started. We fixed a huge breakfast with grits, eggs, bacon, toast, and more venison, this time in sausage format. It looked a little off-putting, but tasted fine.

With such a gluttonous start, it was hard to imagine another paddling trip, but we headed out anyway. Stephen, Houston, and I walked down to where our boats were chained and set out. We would meet Chip at the boat ramp, where he would have his boat and the rest of our gear for the day.

Brothers Retreat at Jocassee – Part Two

March 27, 2012 Tom No Comments

Family, Paddling

…or “Becoming One with the Water”

Houston and I got up early, thinking we might do an early paddle. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating. It started pouring, and I kept checking the weather radar app on my phone. It looked like it was going to clear up soon, though, and it did.

Stephen got an early start and met us at the villa. After greetings, pleasantries, and settling in, we were anxious to get on the water. We decided that rather than dragging the boats down the trail to the beach, we would toss them on Houston’s truck and drive around to the boat ramp reserved for the villas.

Down at the ramp we readied the boats, as low clouds hung over the mountains to the north.

For this trip we decided to do a route Houston had done before, and I had done several times. We were ging to paddle up to Wright Creek Falls first, then see where we could go from there. The weather was still iffy, so I didn’t know how far we might make it.

Out on the lake there were loons – and not just the ones in kayaks. There was the distinctive loon call, and the birds proved themselves to be amazing divers. Stephen and Houston thought one had drowned given the amount of time it was under.

Brothers Retreat at Jocassee – Part One

March 26, 2012 Tom No Comments

Family, Paddling

It was Stephen who first suggested it. The three Taylor brothers needed to take some time away for a multi-day paddling trip. We would pick a long route and camp along the way. Then reality set in and the plan got altered somewhat. Having slept on the hard ground enough in our lives, we decided that renting a villa at Lake Jocassee would be even better. A weekend in March was appointed, and I called and reserved our villa at Devil’s Fork State Park.

Having to plan that far in advance can be fraught with unexpected peril. I had work issues that I was afraid would delay me. Stephen had pastoral obligations that delayed his arrival and Houston had…cats. I finally got all my gear packed and arrived at the park at about 3:30 for check-in.

The term “villa” was a better choice than “cabin” when the park named these things. They are quite nice (as well as being reasonably priced.) We had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, fireplace, and even satellite TV. This was a far cry from when I last stayed up here in a tent with Houston.

Colleton Museums and BBQ

March 12, 2012 Tom No Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography, Travel

We had made a successful escape from Donnelley WMA. The ACE Basin was behind us, but not forgotten. We would be back, and we would conquer it, haints and curses be damned. However, on this particular Saturday, we still had lots on our plate. That phrase turned out to be truer that we could imagine.

Upon escaping Donnelley, our first objective was food. We drove through some very historical areas of Colleton County without stopping to admire them. Our target was Duke’s BBQ, located just off of Highway 15 to the northeast of Walterboro.

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The Curse of Boynton House

March 11, 2012 Tom 44 Comments

Photography, Travel

Boynton House sits abandoned and forlorn in a remote corner of the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area, part of the ACE Basin. It was once the main house for a vast rice plantation. Now the wooden filigree is falling apart, and bat guano fills several of the rooms. On this particular trip, we also found out that it is cursed.

Normally we do a paddling trip the second Saturday of each month with the Lowcountry Unfiltered group. This time we decided to do something different. One of our members, Rob Dewig, has a new job with the Colleton County Museum. We wanted to check out his new digs. We also planned to do a bit of bike riding in the ACE Basin.

I got up far too early on Saturday morning and drove on down to the Lowcountry. Five other hearty souls joined me at the main kiosk for Donelley. It sounded like a disciples convention – Thomas (me), Matthew, James, John, James, and a young guy whose name starts out C-h-r-i-s-t. (Christian, Jimmy’s son). Yeah, we were in for trouble of Biblical proportions.

Camera Obscura – Part 2

March 7, 2012 Tom 1 Comment

History and Genealogy, Photography

Last time I gave a brief introduction to the camera obscura, describing what it was and a tiny bit of the historical background. This time I’m going to cover my personal experience with these systems.

I started playing with cameras when I was about 9 years old. My first was a hand-me-down Brownie Box camera that I got from my sister, Glynda. Unfortunately, none of the photos I took from that era survive, but I still have that camera. That old camera wasn’t much different from a pinhole camera – just a basic light-tight box with an aperture and some sort of capture medium (ie, film.) As a teen I spent one summer making actual pinhole cameras with my brother, Houston. We experimented with various styles made from oatmeal boxes and brass shimming with different aperture pinholes. Again, none of those images survive.

While my father was principal of Gray Court Owings School, my brothers and I had the run of the place. We found an old unused closed that had been used as a changing room for basketball teams long, long ago. The room was under the stage, and had running water. It was the perfect place to commandeer for a dark room, so that’s where we set up our chemicals and enlarger. Stephen and Houston did more of actual dark room work, but I remembered that location, hidden away under the stage of the old auditorium under a trap door.

There was a long lull while music, college, rock climbing, and river running (somewhat in that order) took precedence over photography. 16 years after building my first pinhole camera, I found myself teaching a unit on light to class of gifted 7th graders at GCO, and I figured the best way to convey some of the concepts was through photography.

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Camera Obscura – Part One

March 6, 2012 Tom No Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography

One of my favorite websites is Atlas Obscura, a self-proclaimed “compendium of the world’s wonders, curiosities and esoterica.” Last week they highlighted a similarly named location, the Camera Obscura of Santa Monica. At that point it all came flooding back to me, my obsession with the camera obscura and my nascent photography interests. So, of course, you know what that means – blog posts on the subject – lots of them.

So, over the next several posts I’ll look at the history of the camera obscura, including my particular history with the subject, We’ll take a look at some locations that feature cameras obscura, and I’ll even try to built and photograph one of these beasts. We’ll see how it goes.

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A Trip to Madison

February 26, 2012 Tom 4 Comments

Photography, Travel

Saturday morning we wanted to get out of the house for a bit. So, we had a big breakfast, loaded everyone into the car, and headed west.

Laura’s mother had never seen Clemson, so that was going to be one of our stops. I also had a potential ghost town I wanted to check out. Laura’s desires were simple – she wanted a hamburger somewhere. The only problem was that we had a time limit. Laura and I had to be back for a dinner party that evening.

We pretty much stuck to our plan. We drove straight to Clemson and drove around the campus. We also drove through the state botanical garden. There didn’t appear to be much in bloom, so we didn’t stop and get out.

After touring Clemson, we headed south on Highway 76 until we got to the Old Stone Church. Last time I was here there was a maintenance man on duty and he let me into the church. No such luck this time. The place was locked up and I could only take photos from the outside.

Pixlr Photo Editing

February 16, 2012 Tom No Comments

Internet, Photography

I had tried Pixlr a long time ago, but had completely forgotten about it until my friend and fellow instructional tech geek Tony Thompson posted something about it on his blog last month. With Picnic being assimilated by Google and with Aviary acting a bit weird, I was hoping another option for online photo editing would come along, and Pixlr seems to be the best option right now.

Pixlr comes in several flavors. There is the full-fledge photo editor, but there are also several quick tools for adding preset effects. There is Pixlr Express for quick touch-ups and Pixlr-o-Matic for effects such as vintage photos, etc. Android and iOS apps are available for these last two services. There is also Pixlr imm.io, an image sharing service and Pixlr Grabber, a screen capture plugin for Firefox and Chrome.

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