There’s something about roads less traveled, although I know the farmers and photographers travel these quite a bit.  Anyway, this south east area of Washington state is quite beautiful.  Today I got an early start and emptied pretty much an entire tank of gas re-aquainting myself with these rolling hills. I’ll be doing more of this over the next few days so expect to see many similar scenes 🙂  I have joined a group of photographers here in Colfax, and from the initial briefing, it seems we will be moving out every morning at 5am and shooting until after dark, so maybe you won’t see many images because I will be falling into my bed exhausted every evening.

I was on a mission yesterday evening to capture a couple of shots of the magnificent wrought iron gates at St. Michaels Episcopal church.  I wanted to produce a set of matching prints for an upcoming silent auction that I’ve been asked to donate to. I like these, but I’m  not sure yet whether they will be the final choices. I do love the subject matter though; there is no shortage of great photographic material in Charleston, South Carolina.

What can I say, I live in the Lowcountry, so that’s most of what ends up on this blog.  This is pretty cool however.  Earlier this year, a neighbor and I were very involved in the survival of owlets that had been born to parents who had built a very inadequate nest in their yard.  Actually my neighbors did all of the work and I mostly photographed them 🙂 We think one owlet probably didn’t make it, but one certainly did and he now has his big boy feathers and is hunting along with his parents in the marsh and island forest that adjoins our neighborhood.  Yesterday evening we took a paddle down the creek at high tide to see how the family was doing.  We spotted the juvenile (see below) and he seems to be doing great, but the others were not to be seen, at least not last evening.  It was hot, and we were more than ready for a shower when we were done, but it was a lot of fun.  Here are some of the images I took.

What an idyllic life for a little boy, growing up in these parts.  Today it’s a sunset paddle in a kayak with Dad on the beautiful Stono River.

  

In my mind, nothing represents the lowcountry way of life more than
seeing a cast net fly over a creek.  I had been wanting to capture this
on camera for awhile and yesterday evening everything came together; the
tide, the weather, and my always obliging friend James.  Here are a few of the images.

There was nowhere I had to be today so I decided to take a mini road trip through the farms and small towns in our beautiful state.  I also took the opportunity to spend some time with friends in Ridge Spring, a hub of peach farming activity.  Being farmers themselves, and having lived in the area for many generations, they were happy to be my guides and show me all kinds of really neat things that I would completely have missed if I hadn’t known about the gravel roads that crisscross fields and link farms with neighboring farmsteads in the region.

Last
week we scheduled an hour in Holy City Helicopter’s R44, expertly piloted by
Dylan, for the purpose of photographing our hydro survey vessel working in the
Cooper River.  It was a beautiful day with great visibility, even though
as a rule I prefer to do aerial photography in the late afternoon.  Since
the chopper moves a lot quicker than the boat, we had some time to photograph
other stuff while we were waiting for them to get to their next location. 
Communication efforts between us and the boat captain were interesting, and
after trying radio, texting and cellphones, we finally resorted to good old
hand signals out the (non-existent) chopper doors. Here are some of the images we captured as
we buzzed around.

Kids portraits are always a hoot.  You just never know what to expect so you just have to let it all happen and grab the shots you can when they’re not pulling funny faces or picking their noses.  These little munchkins were giving their mother a fit the whole time, and I know she felt completely despondent as she packed them up and left.  When I went through them later though, I found enough gems to make it all worthwhile.  

Gideon wanted to ride on a train, so we booked a cabin in Bryson City
and took the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad train from there to
Dillsboro, NC and back again this past July 2014 weekend. These are
images taken along the way that document Gideon’s big day. I think he
will remember it for a long time.