Photography – Page 5 – Random Connections

Abbeville Revisited

April 17, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom No Comments

Rambling

My mother and my sister Glynda wanted to get out and about. Mom likes to rambling and explore as much as any of the rest of our family – we came by it naturally. It was a beautiful but chilly spring day, with dogwoods and azaleas in bloom, so we decided to drive across country to Grits and Groceries for lunch.

Glynda and I had been here before. When we got here today, the interior was crowded, but we were able to find seats at a table with two ladies who were just finishing up. They were quite friendly, so it worked out.

The last time I was here I was taken to task for not trying the tomato pie. I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time, so we started with one of those. It was the size of an overly large muffin, and just enough for each of us to have a bite. I’m glad I tried it, as it was excellent.

Ogeechee River with Lowcountry Unfiltered

April 15, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 1 Comment

Paddling, Photography

It’s a Second Saturday, and time for another Lowcountry Unfiltered adventure. This time LCU would be taking on the mighty Ogeechee River south of Savannah, Ga. The Ogeechee is Georgia’s Edisto River. It’s a nearly 300 mile free-flowing blackwater river. The section we would be floating would include cypress swampland, as well as some tidal flow.

Having spent the night nearby, I had plenty of time to get a good breakfast and head over to our rendezvous at the take-out at Kings Ferry Park on Highway 17. I was the first to arrive, and took the opportunity to catch some photos in the morning light.

Tybee and Bonaventure

April 15, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 1 Comment

Photography, Rambling, Travel

Bonaventure Cemetery-10 — Bonaventure Cemetery

This weekend is our monthly outing with Lowcountry Unfiltered. Since our river was down below Savannah, I decided to head down on Friday and do some exploration ahead of time.

My plan was to leave as early as possible, check out the Savannah waterfront and some of the old homes, then check out Bonaventure Cemetery. In the evening I planned to have dinner at the Crab Shack on Tybee Island.

Unfortunately, traffic didn’t cooperate. It was Friday before Easter week, so it seemed like everyone was heading south. I didn’t get down to Savannah until afternoon. The city was a zoo, and I’d had enough traffic, no matter how historic and scenic. I decided to drive on out to Tybee, since I hadn’t been there in a long time.

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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.

Day Trip to Cataloochee

April 4, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom No Comments

Photography, Rambling, Travel

Catalochee Overlook — Cataloochee Valley, North Carolina

Keith had the day off, and wanted to visit the Cataloochee Valley in North Carolina. The weather looked like it was going to be spectacular, so Wednesday we collected Ken from Clemson and set off toward the Great Smokey Mountains.

Cataloochee Valley is a remote settlement on the eastern side of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Originally a Cherokee hunting area, the valley was settled by the Colwell (later Caldwell) and Palmer families in the early 1800s. Livestock roamed the valleys, and hunting brought in more commerce. By the early 1900s nearly 800 people lived in the valley. Tourism increased in the valley for hunting, fishing, and the spectacular scenery. In 1922 the Great Smokey Mountains National Park was established, which included the Cataloochee Valley. Residents were granted lifetime leases on their properties, but many decided to leave.

Today, Cataloochee is almost as remote as when the park was established. The only way into the valley is over one of two twisting dirt roads. In the 1970s there was a plan to pave a way in, but by the 1980s that was abandoned. The valley is very much like Cades Cove on the western part of the national park, but without the constant crowds. In 2005 a herd of elk were introduced to the valley, and those, along with the scenery and trout fishing serve as the main draw for tourists today.

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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.

Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 1

March 17, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom No Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling

Saturday morning I joined several folks from the Laurens County Museum and the Clinton Museum for a trek across lower Laurens County. Our route would take us through the communities of Cross Hill and Mountville. Both museums have recently received grants to develop tours of the area, and our intent was to find and document locations that might be included.

On this day the trek party would consist of Mary Ellen Lives and Julius Bolt from the Laurens County Museum and Elaine Thorpe from the Clinton Museum. Sean Green from Pickens would serve as the official photographer. I was tagging along to add my expertise in GIS/mapping and media development. I would be taking photos, too, but mainly I was just thrilled to be included, and looking forward to gaining access to some locations I’d not been able to visit.

We gathered at the Clinton Museum, located in an old house on North Broad Street just north of the town square. Sean was already waiting for us. Sean is another one of those folks I’ve known online for a long time, but had never met in person. His Flickr stream came to my attention when he was finding some interesting abandoned places, some of which led to ghost towns that I’ve documented. He also has an extensive collection of contra dancing photos. Laura and I used to dance all the time, and now Sean is documenting those dances.

Soon we were joined by Mary Ellen, Julius, and Elaine. I had already met these folks, and we had met a few weeks back for an initial discussion about how they wanted to create maps for the tours. The initial tours would be walking tours because the grant was for health-related activities. Today we were looking at areas we might want to include if we were to develop driving tours as well.

Quick Trip to Donnelley and Beidler

March 13, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom No Comments

Photography, Rambling

Alligator B&W — Alligator at Donnelley Wildlife Management Area

I did it. I pulled the trigger on a new super zoom telephoto lens for my camera. I have a very old Celestron C90 telescope that I can use with my camera and a T-Mount. The magnification is amazing, but it’s almost impossible to focus properly, and I have to put my camera in full manual mode. That makes it difficult to use for wildlife photography.

About this time last year I had rented a Tamron 200-500mm lens and we made a rainy trek down to the ACE Basin and Beidler Forest. Even though it rained most of our trip, I got some great shots that weekend, and enjoyed using the longer lens. I started saving my pennies so that I could get one.

I didn’t get the Tamron, but found a Sigma 150-500 that I liked that also had image stabilization. It arrived last week.

Since it was the start of Laura’s spring break, we decided it was time for another Lowcountry birding trek to get the new lens a trial run. We repeated our trip almost exactly except without the rain, visiting the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area in the ACE Basin on Monday and the Francis Beidler Forest on Tuesday.

Edisto from Whetstone to Greenpond

March 12, 2014May 16, 2014 Tom 1 Comment

Paddling, Photography

Edisto from Whetstone to Greenpond-094 — Oxbow Lake on the Edisto River

Another second Saturday and it was time for another Lowcountry Unfiltered trip. It was also time to get back on the water. While our group loves any kind of exploration, from swamp stomping to biking, our preferred form of travel has always been water.

We bounced several ideas for the March trip back and forth. Finally, we settled on our old standby, the Edisto River. We would be doing a new stretch (for us) from Whetstone Landing down to Greenpond Landing. The route would be about 13.6 miles.

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.