I hit my first milestone

Good morning/day/evening y’all. It’s been a great week here in Charleston. I’d like to thank all of you in helping me reach the first of many milestones. I’ve reached over a 1000 pageviews on my website. Now to some that’s not a major thing, but for someone who’s been doing this full time for only 3 months it is. And THANK YOU!!! 

This week I headed out to Folly Beach, one of Charleston’s many beaches, to capture a sunrise. Well the colors just weren’t there so I worked on my minimalist photography. That’s were ther is just one subject. I also worked on my long exposure photography as well. I then photographed one of Chalreston’s oldest icons, The Angel Oak Tree. This tree is stated to be around 1500 years old and can you imagine the stories it would tell?  

Well this week we celebrate Amaerica’s birthday, July 4th. So I’ve got a few tips for y’all who are going to shoot the fireworks.  

1) Get a sturdy tripod. You’ll need it because of the long exposure times.  

2) Get a cable release, it makes photographing the fireworks much easier as you don’t need to touch the camera causing blurring images.  

3) Set your camera to Bulb Mode (B) Choose an f-stop around f 9 through f 11.

4) For focus, I’d wait for the first fireworks to go off, let the camera autofocus system lock on then set it to manual focus.  

5) As the fireworks take off, press and hold the cable release and don’t let go until after the explosion dissipates. That way you capture the trail and the explosion all in one shot.  

6) HAVE FUN!!! It’s the 4th of July so sit back and enjoy the show. As photographers we get so caught up on getting the shots that we lose focus on enjoying the moment with friends and family.  

So those are a few tips I have, for y’all who will just shot with your mobile phones, you can hold your phones up and try to anticipate when the explosion occurs as the tail takes off. I have taken a few good shots with my phone. 

Well folks I hope y’all have a great short week, I’ll be off to Greenville this weekend, I’m going there to support a local and fellow photographer who’s doing his first exhibit at a gallery and to explore the Up Country.  

Taken at The Washout on Folly Beach  

This week in my Charleston Chronicles

Well another week has come and gone. We are closing on April and coming up on May. At this rate the holidays will be here in no time. I had a very productive week, met with my SCORE mentor, this is a free  service that South Carolina offers small business owners in order to help them be successful. Took in a great amount of business information from him. Did a bit of exploring and photographing in downtown. Thinking of a few personal projects while walking around, more to come on that later on. I had my first business meeting on Thursday and it went well, let’s see if I can start drumming up some business. 

Over the weekend I took a matting and mounting class where I got to mat my own photograph. This will help me with several things; 1) it’ll help me distinguish myself from the rest of the local artist who just use plain white mats and 2) help reduce the cost in having someone else do it. I’m only going to do my own matting for the smaller prints, all my other pieces will be done by professionals.   

Sunday was a great day. Malena and I took part in the annual “Blessing of the Fleet”  where the local fishermen parade down the Cooper River and are blessed by the local clergy in hopes of a good and safe fishing season. After the Blessing we headed over to Water’s Edge, a local eatery on the banks of Shem Creek where you can see the fleet of shrimp boats. If you ever find yourself in Charleston, come check out Shem Creek. Let’s make this week and every week a great one! 

Another beautiful Charleston sunset. That is St. Phillip’s in the background. (Image shot for my IPhone) 

Ben Osborn of Eastbound and Down Framing who taught a workshop on how to matte and mount your images. I learned quite a bit from Ben who’s a transplant from Austin, Tx. And yes, we both agree that Lewis BBQ is the closest thing to Texas BBQ in Charleston. 

A collage of images from The Blessing of the Fleet event in Mt. Pleasant. 

This week in my Charleston Chronicles

Well another week has gone by living here in Charleston. This past weekend was great, on Saturday my wife, Malena, ran her first event here in Charleston. It was the 41 annual Cooper River Bridge run. A run that starts in Mt. Pleasant just across the Cooper River and finished in downtown Charleston. Approximately 40,000 runner turned out this year. As she ran the the course, I headed out to do what I like to do, take pictures. Well, the light wasn’t all the best but as that old saying goes, “A bad day of photography is better than a day at work”. Then I headed over to King Street and see the runners come by. I had found a great donut shop, imaging that, and hung out and did a bit of people watching. 

Sunday, we headed out to Summerville, a little town just north of Charleston where there was the Azalea Festival going on. We went with some friendly neighbors here in our complex. Greg and Nancy are transplants from Minnesota and are the unofficial welcomers of our apartment complex. Well the festival was great, lots of people walking around but no flowers to been seen. As I walked around I was getting ideas for next year of possibly doing a booth here and showing off some of my art, so stay tuned for that. Well another week has started and I’m officially a South Carolina resident, as I did that dreaded line at the DMV. Man, they’re all about the same no matter what state you live in. Okay folks thanks for reading. Maybe my next post I’ll do it from the MIA? Catch y’all on the flip side. 

Bed & Breakfast up for sale

We saw this nice Bed and Breakfast that’s currently up on the market. If anyone is interested in. 

Lots and lots of people walking at the #Azalea Festival

a little #BTS of my Sunrise during Saturday morning 

Look Ma, here come the tourist...

Royal Caribbean Cruise line Grandeur of the Seas coming in for the day. Carnival Cruise also comes to Charleston.