Taking advantage of a little time off from the main gig......

For many people including myself COVID-19 has slowed things down at the day job. For me this means less commercial photography jobs and more time to get out and shoot for myself. And yes, when I have down time from taking photos I like to take photos. However, it’s a little different because instead of shooting what someone else wants it means I get to do my own thing which usually means sunrise landscape photography. Over the week I set the alarm for 5 a.m. and went Mon-Wed from Downtown Charleston > Isle of Palms > Folly Beach. Over the three days I shot a bunch and managed to grab a few keepers. Enjoy.

It only takes a minute

I couldn’t sleep and looked at the forecast for the morning and it said dense fog. For most that isn’t anything to get excited about but for a landscape photographer it can create great drama and mood. I had a spot in mind below the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge at the Mt. Pleasant Waterfront Park I thought could be a good setting for an image but in a quick change of plans decided to walk up to the top of the bridge instead. Most of the walk up was in the dark and my first thought was to shoot car light trails using the diamonds of the bridge as my backdrop. I stopped and snapped some long exposure images but I could tell they just weren’t looking as I had hoped. I put the camera back in my bag and continued up the bridge until I got to about the midway point. The fog was so think I could barely see the diamond above or anything else for that matter but I thought perhaps if I waited things out may there would be a break in the clouds above or below that cool make for a cool image. Although admittedly my patience began to grow thin and I almost called it, after about 30 minutes of waiting I got a break below that was just enough to see bridge and water. The image I came away with is below.

Cypress Gardens South Carolina

On this day and what was my first trip to Cypress Gardens I had the place to myself. After living in Charleston for 16 years it was hard to believe I had never been. At first the landscape was a bit overwhelming but after getting the first shot out of the way I and exploring around I started to get comfortable and capture some images I really liked. For this post I decided to share my favorite image from the trip.

This image was captured as a landscape and shot as a long exposure. I wanted to make the water look glassy but because it was a windy day I had to shoot two images. One image was the long exposure and the other was at a faster shutter speed. The fall foliage and glassy water, plus it being a foggy day, made the image in my opinion.