There’s nothing I love more than introducing my son to new locations. Having lived in this area since I was 8, I sometimes forget all that there is to see. One of my favorite places has always been Fort Pulaski. Growing up on Tybee, my mom used to take a couple friends of mine and me over to the Fort and leave us until it was closing time. We would entertain ourselves climbing the battery, running around the grounds, and hiding in the bunkers in the tunnels and try to scare tourists (many of them did not have lights in them back then). So I was real excited to take Ian and his friend, Carter (who was born 6 days before my little Doodle) and Carter’s mom, Stacy, for an afternoon of mommy and son time. We love hiking the trails around the Fort, and with two little ones, decided to head over to the battery that doesn’t get quite the amount of traffic as the Fort. It’s a great place for two toddlers to terrorize without disturbing too much peace. Ian and Carter immediately took to climbing everything they could, first the steps then the mound. My little precious bundle saw fit to throw a tantrum anytime I tried to stop his high climbing efforts. I threatened to photograph it for his future girlfriend, and since he didn’t believe me, I fired two shots with the Pentax. He was off the ground shortly after that. After a nice run of the battery, we headed into the Fort, toddlers secured so there would be no moat diving. Turns out, it was cannon firing day. Ian, of course, had no interest in the cannons but thought it was fun to run in and out of the open rooms to see just how many tourists he could trip. However, his bravery was brought to a halt with the first cannon firing. After that, mom had to learn how to shoot her camera in one hand while holding the tot with the other arm. If you haven’t been to Fort Pulaski in awhile, I highly recommend you go visit. It’s just $5 per adult, and the admission is good for the next 6 days. Not only that,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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I consider myself so blessed to have a beautiful home to go to every night, just the inside, but the land surrounding. Our little country town offers some great subjects to photograph, many of which are right in my...
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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...
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