Full Moon Euphoria

There’s something about cemeteries that fascinates us—the older the graves and monuments and the greater the history the better. So when I heard that the Historic Riverside Cemetery Conservancy was holding “Full Moon Euphoria”, a chance to photograph one of Macon’s oldest and most picturesque graveyards in darkness under a full moon, I jumped at the opportunity. The gathering produced a fun group of photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and I had a great five hours of shooting.

I have always enjoyed shooting long exposures. So many wonderful things can happen when you leave the shutter open for a long time; in the case of this night, from fifteen seconds to over four minutes. With a shutter locked open, movement can create interesting blurs and virtually imperceptible light can fill in with dramatic effects. But in the darkness, while shooting statues and monuments over a century old, the long exposure reduces photography to it’s purest element—capturing light. Using a speedlight or a flashlight, or both, I was able to explore the best way to illuminate these stone edifices to show the things that make them so beautiful.

My favorite part of photographing these monuments was trying to capture their depth and texture. Weathering, broken limbs, and a healthy coating of moss and lichens made them much more interesting. Finding angles to show off these textures was challenging and great fun. And it’s no surprise that the same principles that create great lighting in a fraction of a second in the studio carry through to exposures of stone sculptures greater than three or four minutes.

Unfortunately, the moon that so beautifully lit this serene setting also made some aspects of the shoot virtually impossible. I really wanted to freeze some of the monuments against the blur of rotating stars in the sky beyond. But the moon, coupled with the light pollution of Macon, made the sky very bright. I want to go back to Riverside soon in complete darkness and try those shots again. Until then, you can see a few of my favorites from the night here.

Living in a Shrinking World

A good friend and I played golf in Hilton Head, South Carolina yesterday. We were paired up by the starter with Clive and Gwen, a nice married couple from Toronto. And they convinced me that it really is a “small, small, world.”

There was a time when foreign countries, like far-off and exotic Canada, might as well be alien worlds. And expeditions into remote places like the Arctic, the Amazon jungle, Mount Everest, or the African wilderness were major and significant events—think Columbus, Sir Edmund Hillary, David Livingstone, Ernest Shackleton, or Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild. Weeks or months later, the explorers would emerge, or not, bearing tales or images of strange lands, exotic animals, and bare-breasted natives. Today, it seems that all the bare-breasted natives are wearing Gap clothes and have probably been witnessed to by enough missionaries to fill a decent-sized Methodist Church. And millions of people now know how to bait a crab trap in freezing Alaskan seas or learn just what truly creeps out Mike Rowe. And that’s where Clive and Gwen come in.

Throughout yesterday’s round of golf, which stretched to four-and-a-half hours, Clive and Gwen were amazed by the critters around the course. Despite National Geographic Explorer and twenty-four hours of Animal Planet, seeing an alligator live was captivating. I'm sure I would have felt the same way if a moose had come leaping out of a bunker. They took more photos than a busload of Japanese tourists. And then asked, “Do you watch Dirty Jobs? Have you seen the episode with the alligator farm? Has Mike Rowe ever been to a town near you?”

Seconds later, Clive and Gwen found out that Gray, Georgia, my home town, was the home of Old Clinton Barbecue, the restaurant where Mike Rowe cleaned the smoker in the 2008 season of Dirty Jobs. It’s a landmark. And it has the best barbeque in Georgia—at least that’s what the sign says, and I believe everything I read. Don’t you?

I took this shot of Old Clinton Barbeque last year for a community brochure. I’m sharing it with you so that like Clive and Gwen, you too can relive the memories of Mike in the smoker. It will probably never make the pages of National Geographic. But thanks to the internet and modern explorers like Mike, the world seems just a little smaller.

Augusta National

I spent Thursday and Friday in Augusta, Georgia at Augusta National, home of the The Masters. Augusta National is incredibly well manicured in a way that can only be understood by witnessing it in person. The dramatic elevation changes, the perfect fairways, the $2.50 Master’s club—yes, the sandwich, not a 3 iron—and the understated elegance of a place that oozes history and leaves the thousands of “patrons” awestruck, no matter how many times you’ve visited. The grounds of Augusta National are inspiring. But it is not the golf that was the greatest inspiration. Instead, The Masters reaffirmed another, more powerful passion.

Early Thursday morning, soon after settling into our official “Master’s” chairs near the #2 green, I spotted two photogs among the patrons less than fifty feet to my left. Both were shooting Nikon D3s on monopods, with the sun at their backs. One was shooting a 600mm, the other an 800mm. Very quickly, I realized that I was watching the players, who came through in groups of threes, and trying to compose my own images. And very quickly, I was jealous.
Like most PGA golf tournaments, The Masters enforces a strict “no camera” policy during the four rounds of play. Cameras are encouraged for practice rounds. But I wasn’t there for a practice round. What an ironic juxtaposition.

There were photo opportunities throughout both days I was there. It started with honorary starters Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer opening the tournament. The view of a dozen mowers cutting the fifteenth fairway in perfect synchronization was captivating. And the three turtles that crawled out of the pond and onto the bank just below the sixteenth green with no less than ten thousand cheering spectators surrounding them would have made a great shot, especially each time a wayward shot found the bank beside them. And at one point, Tiger Woods played a bunker shot with the flagstick framed perfectly in the foreground between us. It would have made a splendid shot—if I had a camera.

Passion seems to be a constant theme lately. Finding it must be priceless. Maybe in the same way we seek passion in relationships or careers, I see something beautiful, different, or dramatic, and I long for a camera in my hand. Most every golfer dreams of playing Augusta National just one time—and so do I. But I also dream of shooting this spectacular cathedral of golf as a credentialed photographer, free to roam these grounds seeking feed one of my greatest passions.