South Carolina Solar Eclipse 2017

Driving down to South Carolina off I-95 one drives to several small towns in several stages of decay, once vibrant because of small industries and agricultural enterprises.  It appears to me that the downfall of tobacco has an impact on the communities and younger people moving away.  Still small businesses still barely survive as Melvin’s in Elizabethtown. Drove by the big sign on the main road several times and decided to take the right turn in the main street and tried.  It is on the main shopping strip, narrow as a shotgun style home.  It was busy…good sign.  They only serve hamburgers and hot dogs; that is it.  The hamburgers come with a few condiment choices.  The hamburgers were fine but the T-shirts more tasteful…I mean colorful.

I always happen to go by Myrtle Beach by-pass Rt. 17 on my way to Huntington State Park driving by the Broadway at the Beach amusement park.  Most of these places have an entrance fee, but here it is open and you pay for the amenities you use.  The King Kong climbing the Empire State is the most impressive; the Ferris wheel is big and the upside down WonderWorks building the most unusual and is actually a science museum.  The park is arranged around a lake where there are various boat rides and colorful large inflated wheels.  Numerous shops mostly selling candies and knick-knacks, restaurants, fortune tellers and a couple losing their pants.

Huntington State Park is a small nature reserve with a causeway leading to the barrier island also off Rt. 17 going south. I have visited here for more than 40 years because the ease of photographing wildlife and the variety.  There is a big colony of wood storks that also nest in the area; this is probably the ugliest bird in North America and they feed in groups. 

The black-crowned night heron is also a year round resident; the image below was posterized to give it an artistic look.  I ran into a group of American egrets that were feeding at low tide who were fighting to steal the catch from each and a tricolor heron running to get into the action.   I leave the area with a flower image.

Went to Sumter to watch the eclipse and while there toured the area.  As in many southern towns, it went into a period of decay but now is undergoing a downtown revival. Some buildings have been restored and due to the eclipse, downtown was busy with tourists.  Visited an old printing shop but the old equipment is not used since everything is done now by computers.  The printing press dates back to the 1890’s.

Lunch at the Cut Rate Drugs and Coffee Shop, an old surviving drug store claiming “best chicken salad sandwiches”.  These were scarce in salad and served in large buns…nothing to brag about. The menu was decorated with ads of old medications such as one promising the enlargement of bust by ingestion or cream application…it was not in stock at the drug counter.

Swan Lake is a very attractive park which is basically a swamp with a large number swans and ducks.  There are trails around as well as an interpretation center; it is a worthwhile visit.  The second black and white image shows the patterns of the duckweeds formed in the surface…the waters appeared a bit polluted and overgrown with underwater grasses; these were being removed by crew when I was visiting.

 I have an affinity for eclipses and the first total eclipse that I photographed was in Pungo, an area in Virginia Beach, back in March 7, 1970.  I was there with past acquaintances, some of whom still visit my blog occasionally.  With one of those, I continued to travel for several years in the early 1990’s chasing eclipses all over the world.  The most thrilling was the one in Potosi, Bolivia, in 1994. Being in the Andes, we were high providing a choice location and we selected a spot off the road in a small farm. As the light began to dim, the noisy chickens ran to their coops in desperation as well as the cows mooing to the barns and then total silence.  The dogs started barking but as darkness increased they also quieted down.  When totality passed and the light emerged, the animals started to come out of their residences cautiously until regular life was restored. I hope to be around to photograph the next eclipse in Chile in 2019, also in the Andes.  The simple black and white image below is at the beginning of the eclipse as the moon starts to move in front of the sun.  

 The following image is at totality and it would originally be in white and black because of the solar filter I used that allowed me to take the photos; otherwise the intensity of the light would have not allowed the sensor of my camera to record images.  All the following photos were taken using HDR.  This is a technique by which several images taken at different exposures are stacked together allowing the capture of a larger range of colors and details than just by using a single image.

 Below are various versions of the diamond ring effect at the end of totality. The red flames seen flaring from the edge are called prominences and the glare around the disk is the corona.  There are 3 versions below of the same image below.  The last one was an inversion of colors making the brighter areas look dark.

While in South Carolina, visited a plantation where the 111 year old owner was celebrating her birthday.  Still of clear mind and spirited and full of stories as to things has changed. She is the oldest resident in the state and 19^th in line for the entire USA.

Still way behind in my blogs…will I catch up before the end of the year?

Short Tour Around the South

 Atlanta is the most vivid city of the southeast.  I first set foot here in 1970 and the changes have been extraordinary as in other cities in the South but in a greater scale.  Nothing is the same, not even the Varsity, it has been modernized, and the skyline, it was not there before, not to mention the airport...the busiest one in the nation as they claim!  The most impressive location for me was the Aquarium, it the best of the one I have visited and the tunnel across the major tank was impressive.  It is a place to just look and not photograph but I did it anyway…with not great results due to the reflections of the glass walls.  The porpoise show was different, it was all indoors as in a theater seating.

Would there be an Atlanta without Coca Cola?   John Pemberton formulated it in the 1880s and the original formula included morphine and was marketed as a medicine.  He was a physician and a pharmacist and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel fighting for the South during the Civil War.  Later on during prohibition the formula was changed to remove the alcohol content, the current formula is treated as a trade secret.  The Coca part of the name was derived from cocaine and the Cola from the use of caffeine extracted from the kola nut.  Below is a statue of Mr. Pemberton in front of the Coca Cola museum in Atlanta; he died poor. I recall seeing another museum with a large bottle of Coke in front in LasVegas but do not know if that museum still stands.  I prefer Pepsi but Coke will do.

 Driving across the south, one finds a Barbeque places in all towns who claims that they are the most famous, the ones with the original recipe and the best barbeque sandwiches.  I just stopped in the one below in the city of Sumter, South Carolina who claimed all of the above.  Was it?  Well it was good.  But the building is the most elaborate I have seen and the interior decoration was also great; from that point of view, Maurice Piggy Park is the most luxurious I have visited.  Another item that I have never seen in a Barbeque Place was a buffet line…and there were some customers pigging out.  I tried their mustard barbeque sauce that was very good; it can be found in supermarkets.  The chain has about 14 locations mostly in South Carolina.

Next I visited Huntington State Park, a place I had visited regularly since the early seventies and the most rewarding place to photograph birds, even better than Sanibel Island.  This is a smaller park and the birds are accustomed to people so they are easier to approach. In this occasion I captured a roseate spoonbill taking a bite of a snowy egret.  The spoonbill was doing his feeding business of moving the bill underwater right and left and suddenly the egret landed in front of it.  It appears that latter did not like the former to mess with its meal.  It seems that the wood storks and an anhinga found the occasion funny and were laughing about it.  The shaken snow egret was not pleased.

There are not only birds but the other most common species are people. But they may not be too appetizing to alligators.  The wannabe Rembrandt seemed annoyed by the paparazzo that was targeting his landscape painting.  But I did capture the gentleman who has recently entered the South Carolina Beard’s Club 2014 beard, moustache and facial hair competition.

 Driving south from Huntington State Park, Hobcaw Barony is found before crossing the bridge into Georgetown.  This property was purchased by Bernard Baruch, originally from South Carolina who was an entrepreneur and political figure during the first half of the 20^th century.  He entertained famous people such as Winston Churchill and advisor to presidents Woodrow Wilson and t President Roosevelt during the First and Second World Wars.  The property of approximately 16,000 acres is located in the Waccacamau peninsula, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Wynjah Bay to the west, and came into the property of his daughter Belle who upon her death, deeded it to a foundation.  There various structures in the property and at one time, rice were the major agricultural crop back in the 19^th century that was tended by slaves.  Some of the structures such as the Hobcaw house and the Bellefield house can be visited with prior arrangements.  There are also guided nature tours, I choose to take the one of the beach which is part  nature reserve and borders a new development to the north; these houses are subjected to beach erosion as is the situation along the majority of the length of the Atlantic coast.  Erosion is very obvious inside the preserve as can be seen from the base of the dead tree, farther inland the palmetto, the state tree of South Carolina is abundant.  Plan your trip there before going.