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Articles Tagged with: SC

Food Truck Rodeo!

We were sitting around eating brunch at IHOP, which lets face it – the food is barely edible, when the discussion of the Food Truck Rodeo came up. Darn it, why didn’t we think of that before we sat down to our egg substitute and Go-Gurt topped excuse for a meal? One of the vendors at the Rodeo was Happy Camper Snoballs, who the kids & I remembered from Kulture Klash 7. We could at the very least stop by the event for some sweet cold goodness as dessert!

We couldn’t believe how many people showed up at Mixson community development in the Park Circle area of North Charleston. Parking was scarce, but the walk was well worth the treats that lay ahead. We hopped on line to grab some fruit infused snowy heaven in a Chinese take-out container.

While on line, we saw local photog Jonathan Stout taking some video of the lines. He’s got a cool art show coming up called “The 3 Amigos Ride Again, For the First Time” with Meta Sapient & Proton Factories at Local Coffee Bar on May 13th.

There was live music, dogs, drinking, and food – a regular party going on! Afterwards we headed over to the North Charleston Arts Festival, which by comparison was like going to a church fair (probably because religious services were letting out in the convention center at the time we arrived). There was some great photography on display by the likes of Kathy Hare and Leah Sparks (as well as a lot of others) at the Arts Festival though. I bet if they had the Food Truck Rodeo at the Convention Center, it would have been an interesting mix of people 😉

As usual, you can check out my Flickr Stream for all of the photos I took today. Many of the photos in this post made heavy usage of the Tonal Contrast filter effect in Nik’s Color Efex Pro because I felt like making gritty high dynamic range style photos today.

Palmetto Islands County Park

On Sunday we took a trip with some friends to the Palmetto Islands County Park in Mount Pleasant, SC to let the kids burn off some energy and enjoy perfect spring weather.

The kids had fun on the Big Toy Playground, and eventually we moved the fun over to the observation tower, which has another play area built off of it. This is great because the kids can climb and slide while the parent relax up top to enjoy the view.

While up at the top, my wife spotted this little bluebird on the branches of a tree right next to the tower. When I zoomed in on the bird, I noticed that it had caught lunch in its beak!

The park is called Palmetto Islands because it is a series of little islands in the marshland connected by boardwalks. We decided to take a hike and explore a little.

We made it to the last island which was home to some fishing docks. I had this great shot of the kids all lined up looking into the water off the edge of the dock and before I could squeeze the shutter, they decided to get up and go to the other side. Darn you meddling kids! Luckily, our buddy Krista had the mom-like reflexes to tell the kids that there was an awesome turtle on the other side and they all came back wide-eyed as can be looking for a reptilian swimmer. Hence, I was able to get this shot:

As we hiked along, I took advantage of the plethora of palm fronds and tried to manipulate my position and the palms themselves to catch the sunlight in interesting ways. The photo up at the top of this post was magnificently back-lit, while this photo was taken half in shadow:

Thunderbirds Practice

Yesterday, I was over by the old Navy base in North Charleston and I heard the roar of jets overhead. I looked up and 5 F-16’s screamed across the sky. The telltale logo on the underside of the jets can’t be mistaken – the US Air Force Thunderbirds are in town!

Luckily, I had my camera with me and I quickly pulled over and waited. I started out shooting manually, and when I finally got the planes in frame in a really cool formation, I let the shutter rip. After they were out of frame, I checked the LCD and most of the shots stunk out loud. I had manually set everything beforehand, but I neglected to realize that as I panned the bright and sunny sky, the correct exposure changed drastically. I had to change my game plan and set the camera to Aperture Priority mode and the ISO to auto. Then the results started to vastly improve. At this point in my photographic journey, an F-16 is still a bit too fast to adjust to manually 😉

Two New Beach Prints Available

As I was choosing prints I wanted to show for this weekend’s Kulture Klash Arts Festival, I was going through my library of photos to find water themed images. I found two that stuck out for me, but they didn’t work for the triptych idea I ended up going with. I’ve decided to put them up in the store and offer them to you!

The first one, which is shown above, was made in Freeport last summer. It’s entitled “Reef Rafters” because there is a silhouette of to people on a raft out by the reef. I originally processed this photo as a color image (shown here), but decided to crop it down a little bit and convert it to black & white. I love the way the clouds and the water work together and the monotone version really makes that feature stand out.

The other photo was made on Sullivans Island in South Carolina in August of 2010. The lone beach-goer sitting on the shore reading made for a serene subject. It’s nice to get a single subject against a vast backdrop like this – I find it quite peaceful. I’m getting ready to spend some quality time at the beaches again as the weather gets warmer, and these images make me want Summer to be here already!

Kudos To Miller’s Professional Imaging

I wanted to write a post just to share with you the work that I’m contributing to Kulture Klash 7, but I need to first share with you my account of the great service I received from Miller’s Professional Imaging (who are the people behind Zenfolio/MPIX which is who I use for all of my prints).

I’m quite the busy guy, with a family to support (I’m writing this post as I tend to my daughter who’s home sick from school today) and another business to run. Although I knew that this weekend’s KK7 Arts Festival was this coming up quickly, I failed to note that the artwork drop off date was today (April 5th)! I had ordered my prints over the weekend and when I got a reminder email from the organizers of the festival about the drop off date yesterday, I had a mini panic attack because I wouldn’t have my work ready in time. I quickly sent an email to Zenfolio’s support people and explained my screw-up and asked if I could bump up the shipping to overnight. Not only did they get back to me quickly, they rushed the processing of the prints and upgraded my shipping at no extra cost! I was prepared to pay whatever it takes and they just took care of me at their expense – In my opinion that is simply amazing customer service that goes above and beyond. I’m so proud to have them as my printing partner for JWNPhoto.

The work I’m showing at Kulture Klash was really not what I had originally planned on showing this time around. I had planned on keeping a musical theme with my photos and to have a relationship between them all. When the organizers announced that the theme of the festival for KK7 was going to be water, I threw out my original idea and started thinking about water themed photos. I have a lot of shoreline photos but I didn’t want to come off as kitschy, especially in this festival’s environment which tends to cater to a more underground art scene. Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic sunset photo and I truly love trying to differentiate myself from the crowd while still creating a photo of the same sand, water, and sky. I thought of some of the common traits in my favorite shoreline photos that I’ve created recently – bold color, portrait orientation, & negative space. I remembered that unlike a photo competition – there are no rules to an art show. I could present a triptych of three different images that share a common theme and make an even stronger presentation.

The images at the top of the post are three 20″x30″ prints arranged intentionally in order and placement by the time of day and horizon. The first image was made from the Pitt Street Bridge of the Charleston Peninsula at sunset. I love the crimson color of the sky and the two cranes that look almost like they’re worshiping the falling sun. I remember a seemingly intoxicated lady who walked by while I was making this shot and she commented that the sunset was not very nice. I guess that’s why they say opinions are like asses… everybody has one. The second photo was made at Shem Creek from the bridge. I zoomed in tightly to capture a very golden sky – I love the contrast of the blue shrimping boat and the reflections of the boardwalk lights in the water. This shot also has a diagonal line formed by the dock and boardwalk that is something I tend to look for in a lot of my landscape photos. Finally, the third photo is of the recent Supermoon. I wanted a simple and bold graphical image of the water and the color and shape of the unusually bright moon. It’s very interesting to note that local photographer Robert Donovan (and a host of other local photogs) were all in the same area taking pictures of the same moon, but with very different results. Robert’s image is very similar in composition, but his focus on the detail of the moon made for a completely different image! He’s exposure is very different, so the colors are radically different as well. It just goes to prove that there is a lot of artistic interpretation going on when you get behind the camera and develop the finished product.

Another piece that I’m showing is this diptych that I made for a Gizmodo.com photo challenge. I wanted to show a picture featuring a person, because I don’t want to be typecast as a landscape photographer. I love the feeling of this photo – The saturation and contrast are very expressive and the Elmo T-Shirt is begging for your eye’s attention, much like the subject’s (my daughter) body language is longing for the attention of the waitress.

I hope to see a lot of friends at the festival this weekend – don’t forget to get your tickets early and save a few bucks!

Kayla & Kegan

My kids’ grade school held their annual community fair this past weekend, and my son was very excited to get a chance to hang out with one of his favorite classmates, Kayla!

The kids slid, jumped, and climbed for hours on a beautiful spring day.

I though I’d let my son have a say in this post, so here’s my interview with Kegan about his buddy:

Joe: What do you want to tell everybody about Kayla?

Kegan: She’s very nice!

Joe: What is your favorite memory of Kayla?

Kegan: She came to my birthday party and got her picture taken while playing.

Joe: If you could tell Kayla one thing right now, what would it be?

Kegan: I’m so happy that we are friends!

I’m happy they’re friends also 😉

Patriots Point Seabirds

There’s a spot at the Charleston Harbor Marina to the side of the marina offices out in the water where there are six pilings whose only purpose seems to be as a resting spot for the local seabirds.

I find myself working in those offices and usually walk around the side of to check out what’s going on on the pilings – usually, I’m only armed with my iPhone, which was used to take this photo below:

Last week I decided to bring my camera with me out on the docks and took some shots of the pelicans, seagulls, and cormorants.

This double-crested cormorant just landed after taking a swim and needed a place to dry off:

I haven’t posted anything in a week, so I thought I’d share this with you. I’ve got some fun things coming up, so don’t think I’m slacking off or anything!

Valero At The Oasis

After the rise of the super moon last night, I stopped over at the Oasis on Folly Road in James Island to catch a set from Clemson’s emo rock band Valero.

While I was somewhat prepared to shoot the moon over the ocean, I wasn’t prepared for a live band and I was really wishing I packed a f/1.8 prime lens with me because the lighting in the Oasis is just plain harsh. One side of the stage was red, the middle was green and blue, while the other side was barely lit at all.

I had my f/2.8 Tamron 17-50mm lens with me, so I set my auto ISO threshold to max out at 3200 (I usually have it limited to 1600) and varied between 100th and 125th of a second for my shutter speed, which was just enough to freeze the action. I did try to use my flash for some shots, but I wasn’t feeling it, and I didn’t want to annoy the band with a lot of flash activity. I tried to make the best of the lighting situation and get some low key shots such as these:

I also tried to play of the club’s Christmas themed stage colors which gave some interesting contrast to these shots:

Go ahead and check out Valero’s Bandcamp.com page to listen to their latest recordings, or check them out on their Facebook page. You can also check out the complete set of shots from Saturday’s show on my Flickr stream.

Super Full Moon 2011

Last night at sunset, the Perigee Moon rose in the east. This is the largest full moon since March of 1993 I gathered up family, friends, and neighbors to head over to the Morris Island side of Folly Beach to watch the sunset and moonrise.

Taking moon photos at the beach is not an easy task, as I quickly learned. I usually weigh down my tripod with my camera bag, but the wind at the beach made it less stable with the weight than without! Paired with the rapidly decreasing light, long exposures, and quickly moving orb in the sky, it was quite a challenge to get a decent photo of the moon. The other major challenge was the haze – it was quite difficult to focus clearly through it when the moon first appeared. By the time it cleared the haze, it looked no bigger or brighter than any other full moon. No big deal though, as I had the image on the top of this post envisioned when I set out. I wanted a simple graphic image of the scene and I got just what I wanted! I also wanted a moonlight reflection on a soft long-exposed ocean, which I got in the second shot – so I’m quite happy with what I accomplished. I would have liked to have made a shot from behind the trees, but most of the other photogs were getting that shot and I’m sure some of them got some really good results from there.

I was able to grab a couple of shots of the sunset when I arrived, and I think these fulfilled my “through the trees” shot aspirations anyway:

Robert Donovan was on hand as well and we got a chance to talk about photography while waiting for the big show. In fact, there were a lot of photogs there – I thought it looked like a photo studio when we crossed over the dunes onto the beach!

Here’s a shot of my daughter Mac at twilight. I think this was the only split second she wasn’t running around with the other dozen or so kids on hand.

There were plenty of kids running around and having fun, and this girl playing in the sand was the subject of my favorite photo of the evening:

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.

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