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Articles Tagged with: low country

Monotone SC Wetlands

1/200th of a sec | f/9.0 | 65mm | ISO 200

I was out at a private plantation in Goose Creek, SC this morning and on the way out I took some shots along the road of the forest. The shot above is one that I always want to shoot when I’m driving and see the woods cut abruptly short at the edge of a road. The sight of the wall of the edge of a forest is daunting to me.

1/100th of a sec | f/9.0 | 55mm | ISO 200

The cypress trees always make for interesting pictures because they grow out of still swamp water and sometimes have a very graphical interaction with their shadows and reflections.

1/15th of a sec | f/16.0 | 35mm | ISO 320

This shot is an oak tree alongside a marsh in James Island, SC taken in 2009 with my D40. I like the relationship between the curves of the water and the curves of the tree limbs.

Here are some more cypress trees at Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, SC. This shot was taken in 2007 with my D40 and converted into a single image HDR photograph.

1/1600th of a sec | f/4.2 | 26mm | ISO 200

Finally, we arrive at Botany Bay Plantation in Edisto Island, SC. This photo was also taken in 2009 with my D40 (that camera is a fantastic little DSLR). The beach at Botany Bay is like something out of a dream; shell covered beaches, trees in the surf, and teaming with shorebirds and wildlife.

Second Sunday On King St.

Late last year, the city of Charleston decided after the success of the “Do the Charleston” festival to regularly close King Street to traffic on the second Sunday of each month so that the pedestrians could take over (you can read more about the origins here). Today I was finally able to bring the family for an afternoon downtown and also to do some street photography.

The diptych above was a group of people watchers in Ye Ole Fashioned Ice Cream and Sandwich Cafe. They were having a blast commenting on what everyone was wearing, and I told them I was turning the camera on them next!

1/100th of a sec | f/4.5 | 62mm | ISO 200

It didn’t take long for me to start looking for some decent light and interesting people to shoot. It was mid-day, so the light was harsh and three quarters of the street was in shadow. I found that the slivers of light between buildings was a great side-light opportunity and looked for opportunities to use it.

I also looked for people who were doing just ordinary things, like eating some lunch…

…or drinking some coffee…

…or talking on the phone…

…or walking their dog…

…or flipping me the bird while double-fisting some beverages…

…or looking as happy as can be…

…or just as pretty as can be.

I was hoping to get a lot of shots of people dressed up as characters from the “Where’s Waldo” series as there was an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people dressed like Waldo in one place (more info on that here). Unfortunately, they fell quite short of the record. I did grab a shot of these two festive Wandas:

As with any outdoor Low Country event, the dogs were out en masse. I think the next time I attend one of these Second Sundays I’m gonna focus on capturing the dogs – there were so many awesome dogs out.

Getting down to the dog’s perspective makes for an interesting composition:

These dogs looked really excited to be out and about:

I also made some black & white shots – I knew when I shot this one that it would be perfect as a monotone image – the contrast and negative space are just shouting to be devoid of any distracting colors.

All in all, I had a blast and cant wait to do it again. I have a hefty set of photos on my Flickr stream if you want to see some of the other shots I made today. Street photography is a fun and exciting way to exercise your creative mind, and you end up meeting interesting people in the process.