All the photographs here are best viewed large. It was foggy after all, so details were sketchy at best.
A Morning Out In The Fog – click to enlarge
I did manage a few images before the one above. Borderline quality and probably never see the light of day. The distance and fog here made this landscape worthwhile.
A Morning Out In The Fog – click to enlarge
Double-crested Cormorants took over the ‘spoony’ tree. Here again the weather made for a different look than I usually see.
A Morning Out In The Fog – click to enlarge
And of course the winter colors here in low light can be stunning.
A Morning Out In The Fog – click to enlarge
Doesn’t hurt to have some big pink birds in the fore either.
I probably should call this ‘The Tourist Series’. People see the gear and ask where we are from, all the time. Bumped into our ex-governor and state senator the other day…same question. Oh yeah, it’s a trick question from locals.
Charleston area is home of the ‘transplant’. The ‘from’ answer could be where did you last live, currently live, or even place you were born.
Around here everybody has lived a bunch of places. Just means we can have fun with the answer and be completely truthful.
Being a photographer we look at everything as if it’s in that little box called the ‘view finder’. A walk about town, especially around Charleston, is never the same twice.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
Above is a good example. Typical alley windows, old building. Just old, colorful, history. Unless you look at the buildings front. It is a custom bridal gown store. There are works of art in the front window of a historical building. Better, the scene above shot head on. The windows allow a view of either gowns in progress, racks of white on white, on white. We shoot this every time we walk by. It’s always different.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
This is a side street in February, sub-tropical winter. Old homes, and in the far back ground, older home used during our revolution of 1776.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
Walking down an old alley finds this home. A renovated out building or carriage house. One of the few with a modern twist…and a classic scooter. An image I have several of, the scooter is always strategically place for people like me.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
Charleston is called the ‘holy city’. Old churches and steeples fill the entire skyline. So far the struggle to keep tall buildings away is working. Growth and greed is rampant so I’ll take these while I can.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
Taken at the end of an old cobble stone street. A normal Charleston street, mid week February gives a chance of no people in the way.
Walk Around Town, Charleston – click to enlarge
Last, somebody either famous or notorious. Shot at the back alley of the old Charleston Market and Provost Dungeon. A good place to extract a little cash from the ‘real tourist’. And yes, they got me once too.
This article took on a life of it’s own, but this is pretty much what I see on a typical ‘Walk Around Town’.
Something I had never considered before shooting ‘the grand old houses’ was the land and household. On the streets of Charleston you see old antebellum homes, but just the front.
Each old home owned many smaller buildings to support and run the house. Most are either gone or renovated into more modern living space. However a few still have out buildings and gardens.
Out Buildings – click to enlargeOut Buildings – click to enlarge
Everything from living quarters, to kitchens, to stables was needed.
Out Buildings – click to enlarge
Most don’t have any kind of access, but a few are open enough to poke around in.
Out Buildings – click to enlarge
Sometimes when I find these areas they are better to shoot that the big house.
‘The Manigault House (1803) is located near the center of the Charleston peninsula, at the corner of Meeting and John Streets. It is a three-story brick structure, set on a raised brick foundation. The main facade has a two-story porch across the center three bays, with elaborate doorways on both floors featuring slender pilasters and sidelight windows. A semicircular stairwell projects from one sidewall, and a bowed porch from the other, giving the house the rough shape of a parallelogram. The interior features delicately refined woodwork in its fireplace mantels, door and window moulding, and cornices, reflective of the style promoted by Robert Adam, which differentiated the scale of these elements in domestic and civic architecture.The gatehouse standing near the property entrance is an architectural folly.’ (Wikipedia).
In The Joseph Manigault House – click to enlarge
For me the focus of this house is the magnificent stairwell. The house centers around this and everything else is completely over shadowed.
This is the first photograph of a series. Taken from the top floor landing.
