One day, driving from Chapin to Irmo, I got lost on the backroads and found this scene one autumn. I still have no idea where it is. This is perhaps an advantage for a camera with built-in GPS. At least it would allow me to get back to a scene to retake it at a better time of year, from a better position or when I was less rushed.
On a trip to Blackville, SC when I was hunting Mennonites I passed a car graveyard and had to stop to take some photos. They're sepia and slightly soft because the Promaster polarizing filter I had on the lens was horrible. It was more like a diffusing filter which works better if the image is turned to sepia.
Still on the Mennonite hunting trip, I found this abandoned filling station. There were many abandoned filling stations in the center of South Carolina. It's very easy to see just how poor the economy is there.
On the way back from hunting Mennonites, this abandoned shack was located just outside the turn off to the Healing Springs. The line of bottles was what attracted the eye.
A stormy day at Myrtle Beach. Over a few hours the storm rolled in and the sky changed from clear to black before night eventually fell. Somebody out at sea probably had a rough time that day.
The pier at Folley Beach. It was interesting just how glassy the sea was and to see where all the light was coming from. It would be nice to reshoot this with no artificial light anywhere.
A Welsh pit pony or rather the descendent of one of the old Welsh pit ponies. When the collieries closed on the Gower, the pit ponies were turned loose and now their descendents live on the marshland. This was taken in Penclawdd, Wales.
This building was attached to the old mill in Lexington SC. It had been allowed to fall into disrepair and two years after this photo was taken, the building was demolished.
Snow in Lexington, South Carolina. It does snow here. In 8 years, this was the second decent snowfall. Most years if there's any, it's more of a heavy frost than snow.
The swamp thing. No, seriously - it's a dead tree in the Congaree Swamp. This is actually quite a fun place to visit. It's best to visit when the mosquitoes aren't bad.
Again, the Congaree Swamp. There's just so much to see and photograph if it's possible to stand the mosquitoes and the other insects. Anti-bug spray is much recommended here.
There's just nothing quite like getting near nature to get some great texture photographs. This is one of my great passions. Abandoned areas are far more interesting to my photographic eye.
Hotel Celebration in the town of Celebration in Florida. It's a very 1920s style and a very pleasant place to stay - also horribly expensive unless it's pre-booked using one of the discount bookings websites. The whole town is all walkable. There's absolutely no need for a car and one can sit by the lake to watch alligators in the water.
Back at the Congaree Swamp, this butterfly was perched on a handrail. Even though the photo was taken with a 300mm lens, there's barely enough depth of field with an APS-C camera. One of the many times when a smaller sensor would have helped.
Apparently the old cars at the Celebration hotel are used and do actually run. It would have been nice to have gone for a drive in one though I am not sure how well I could have managed the old non synchromesh gearboxes.
A different location this time. This was taken a couple of years after those at Celebration. This was taken on a golf course behind the Hotel Omni in Orlando, Florida. Heaven knows what kind of birds they were but they were by a pond in which there was a crocodile.
Another of the two old cars at the Hotel Celebration in Celebration, Florida. This car was actually black and probably looks better in black and white. Looking at it, it's possible to imagine this car speeding around Chicago with gangsters firing Thompson sub machine guns out of the windows.
It is indeed an authentic British telephone kiosk. These haven't been used in Britain in 20 or 30 years. They were replaced by more modern kiosks and most of those have now vanished due to the ubiquitous nature of the mobile phone. They're still maintained in some rural areas for emergencies. What it's doing in Celebration is uncertain but the barber in the barber shop to the left was from Manchester.
This is the Winnsboro railway museum. I was invited to return to take more photos but life has a way of getting in the way of things like that. It was a fun place to visit but a better place to take photos would be nearer the footplate of the train when it's in motion. That needs a wide-angle lens and plenty light!
One of the many piers in South Carolina. This is quite likely to be the pier at Folley Beach, taken at dusk.
Cypress trees. The things standing up are not alien creatures ready to invade though they look like most bad sci-fi films. They are actually the roots of cypress trees for this is a cypress swamp. Though the grass looks green, it covers a boggy swamp that would probably suck the unwary into its smelly caress.
This is a very unusual view. This is actually the White House in Washington DC. Normally the pictures seen are of the back of the White House as it's so much easier to take photos that way. This was taken from the front. Fortunately there was no panic over security at the time. The secret service was out in force with their black jackets that had "Secret Service" emblazoned upon them in yellow. Not very "secret" but that's another anomaly here.
On the road to the Healing Springs in Blackville this tree was covered in "Spanish Moss" with the light behind it. Had the polarizing filter not been defective, this photo would have looked so much better. Converted to sepia seems to have saved it. Since this shot was taken, I changed my polarizing filters.
Down in Florida again, this lily was begging to be photographed. This has to be my favorite flower photograph.
The Vietnam wall in Washington DC. This was a challenging photograph to take because it really needed a tripod which wasn't available. The camera wanted to focus on the text or the reflection and not in the middle so manual focus had to be used. The flags were flapping around so much that no matter how hard I tried, I could not get the POW/MIA flag in the picture at the same time as the Stars & Stripes. The end result is very pleasing. I'm sure the people whose names are on the wall would like the flag in their midst.
Another abandoned building near Blackville. Small shacks like this are very under-rated. I would happily live in a building as small as this. Sadly it was in a rough area and had been burned down. The whole area reeked of extreme poverty.
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