For one of my photography class assignments, I had to take a self portrait. I don’t care to take photos of myself. In fact, most every photo I have on Facebook is of my son and usually someone else. But there was no getting around it. As part of the assignment, the portrait could be conceptual, tell the viewer more about the individual than just by the face. That part, I figured I could do. I decided I would be brave and venture back down to the Thunderbolt bridge. But after I saw all the trash, graffiti, and used items left behind by others before me, I sort of lost interest. It was, however, a great opportunity to test out my shutter remote, which turned out to work not as well as I had hoped. I had even brought a prop, my favorite book that I read once every year, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. After a few shots didn’t turned out like I hoped, I packed it up, hiked back up to the truck (which was a bit more difficult through the sand and muck than on the way down), and headed over to Bonaventure Cemetery, a place where I shot frequently during my high school photography classes. There is something amazingly peaceful about a cemetery, and Bonaventure has one of the most serene views in Savannah. I often went there on my lunch and free periods my senior year to shoot or just think to myself. I loved that no one else was around, and took full advantage of having the bluff to myself this afternoon. I absolutely love oak trees, and I found just the perfect spot. I had a bit of an issue with shadows, so I kicked on my off camera flash and boom, got a shot I just love. You still can’t see my face but hopefully you can see just how peaceful I was feeling… despite having exactly 8 minutes to finish up my shoot and get out of the cemetery before the gates were closed on...
Learn More
Back in 1996, I took an awesome photography class with Ms. Carmilla Howard at St. Vincent’s Academy. Ms. Howard was big on trying to make us see things differently, do different techniques with our photographs. We were encouraged to enter our pieces in various shows, and I was thrilled to have two pieces end up displayed that year. One of the pieces was one of my all-time favorite shots, which I took from under the Thunderbolt bridge. Yes, I said “under.” I had a friend who lived in the apartments next to it, and we would walk down at low tide and hang out, watch the river, and just talk about life. So it was the perfect setting for me to do some photography. My shot (I hope I can find it again one of these days) was a side-by-side positive and negative black and white image. I loved it, particularly for all the lines it drew out in the photo. So, having a little free time after work before my digital photography class yesterday, I decided to go back and see if I could recreate the shot. My memory proved to be a little fuzzy as to where exactly the path was that we took, but after driving around for about 15 minutes I found it. But almost 16 years later, it was overgrown. I could have braved it, and provided some future YouTube entertainment for someone, but I just was not quite dressed appropriately. So I got these shots instead. (The train shots were taken at the Savannah Visitors’ Center as I killed time before...
Learn More
I am so incredibly excited to be back into photography. I’ve really enjoyed downloading various magazines from around the world on the subject. In one of them, Outdoor Photography, they list 30 projects to challenge your way of thinking about shooting and subjects. I’ve decided to take these as a weekly challenge to see what I can learn about my camera and my shooting style. The challenge this week is “A Day in the Life”: pick an object and photograph it at various times throughout the day to show how it changes with the light, the water, the mood, the environment, etc. It was sunny today but so cold, so I had a hard time getting myself motivated to take the shots. After walking around the yard and taking a few shots, I settled on the palm plants in our front yard. While I don’t think any of them will be portfolio-worthy, it was interesting to see how the light changes throughout the...
Learn More
To celebrate the new year, we took a family hiking and fishing day up to George L. Smith State Park in Twin City, Georgia. The last time we were there was back in 2009, on our first hiking date together. It was a great chance to try out my new Pentax K2000 that I got for Christmas. I feel like some incredible moments were captured, but mostly, I’ve renewed all the enthusiasm I had for photography that had been dormant for over 10...
Learn More
It’s been like spring in January, and I’m loving it! What better way to celebrate than an afternoon with the family at a local park. birds-flight lake weeds ian-tom-tripplett weeds2 geese2 geese...
Learn More