I’m taking a break from publishing all of my blog writings about my recent Mara trip to share this:
I just finished up with my Charleston South Carolina workshop. The ending is kind of bitter sweet. After about 15 years of visiting this low country and several years of running workshops, I will be turning over all future Charleston trips to Donna Bourdon. Donna co-led this workshop with me and she was a great help. The clients loved her and her energy level rivaled mine.
Our group would be described as a dream group. I enjoyed working with them all and I know Donna did too. We hit many of my favorite spots, including Magnolia Plantation & Gardens, no trip to Charleston would be complete without a visit there. We also went on a private charter to Bull Island where we photographed the boneyard beach, Magnolia Cemetery, Shem Creek, Old Sheldon Church, Rainbow Row, Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge and much more. BTW, we had a spectacular sunset for our bridge shot.
We practically ate our way through the city. Jack Kotz (one of the attendees) recommended a restaurant called Edmund’’s Oast Brewing Company for lunch. I had the pickled shrimp dish and it was outstanding! His wife treated us to another great lunch at the Glass Onion where the star of the lunch was the crispy, garlic brussels sprouts.
Above and below are two infrared shots that I captured at Magnolia Plantation & Gardens. I purposely left some pink in the processed photo above as it reminded me of a Wallace Nutting print. I loved the fences and the way the plantation house was enveloped by trees. For the live oak tree photo below, I processed it in a more traditional high-key B&W manner. This is one of my favorite trees at the gardens. Both photos were captured with my infrared converted Olympus camera @720nm.
The tree above was photographed at Bull Island using a slow shutter speed and… tripod <wink>.
I loved the white bridge and the soft pink tones so in post processing I just brightened the whites and dulled some of the pinks after adjusting some of the color channels.
Old Sheldon Church Ruins above. I found that the new black fence could be used as added interest to some images. Captured with my 720nm infrared converted Olympus .
“MEET-N-GREET ‘CHA”.
Thanks to Sonia Durrance for lending me her camera to capture the above image after I had lent my camera out.
The slave cabin photos shown above were captured at Magnolia Plantation & Gardens as part of their Slavery to Freedom tour. There are four historic cabins on the property that date back to the 1850’s. There is also a small smokehouse that was built later. The plantation feels it is important to acknowledge and share this part of history. So do I. If you would like to read more, check out this link.
A Charleston, South Carolina 2022 trip with dates and details will be announced soon. Let me know if you would like to be placed on the interested list.