Jabulani Jonny

Savannah Trip

For the past several years my college roommate of 4 years, and for a few years after graduation, has lived in Baltimore.  They've had a recent addition to their family with a new 4 month old, Jackson, so they decided to move closer to family by moving back to Savannah at the end of July.  I combined a work and pleasure trip to Savannah and we stayed with Danny and his wife Jordan Thursday and Friday night.  We had a wonderful couple of days, ate some great food and took some decent photos.  Here are some shots from the weekend.  It's great to have them close by again. 

This last shot is one of my recent favorites.

We're Back

Well we made it back to the States yesterday, and back to our house today, after two weeks in South Africa with Sunette's family.  Unfortunately I haven't had internet access since last Thursday morning so I wasn't able to post for the last few days while we were down there and the two or three days we were traveling. 

We had a phenomenal time while we were there.  As you can see from the previous posts, we visited a few game reserves, hiked around Hogsback and then Sunette's sister got married the Saturday before we left.  I'll post some pictures from the wedding below.  Keep in mind, I wasn't the hired photographer so I was going after the shots that he wasn't there to take.   

It was a lovely outdoor wedding; a beautiful bride and handsome groom, perfect setting, perfect weather and a hopping dinner and reception.  Sunette and I took ballroom dancing lessons to prepare since the new husband and wife are phenomenal ballroom dancers.  Needless to say the DJ didn't quite play the same kind of music that we had practiced to.  So can you guess which person at the dinner decided to break the ice a bit by providing a firm demonstration of the Tootsie Roll.  Yeah, being the only American there, I had to represent.  Needless to say the party and the dance floor loosened up a bit after that.

All in all, it was a fantastic time.  I pictured it being essentially a photo expedition and that's exactly what it was, from capturing nature and animals to weddings and receptions.  I definitely learned a few tricks and I feel like I got some great images from the trip.

Can I say that we missed Elliot something fierce?  Luckily we were able to video Skype with him while we were there, which made it much easier to be away for so long.  Now we're back home as one big ol' happy family.  I'm sure the routine is just around the corner, but we'll see if we can fend it off for a few more days at least. 

Addo Pt. 2

We're winding up our last day here in Hogsback before heading to Jo'burg for Sunette's sister's wedding.  We'll be in Jo'burg for the weekend, then we fly back stateside on Monday.  We're supposed to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday night. 

We've had a great last few days, going on a nice long hike yesterday and having a lazy day today.  I've taken a few decent shots in the past couple of days, but they'll have to wait 'til tomorrow or the next day to post.  It's been a little chilly these last few days, about 50 degrees or so during the day.  Tonight we're huddled up around a fire, reading, drinking coffee and eating Brandy Tart.  Mmmmmmmm.  Needless to say, I didn't lose any weight on this trip for sure. 

As promised, here are some shots from Sunday in Addo Elephant Park.  I'll continue to post shots I've taken over the last few days, but my internet access may be limited a bit.  We'll see. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of these shots are from when we stumbled on a herd of about 40 elephants at a watering hole late Sunday afternoon.  We sat and watched them for almost 2 hours.  That's a lot of elephants.

Addo Pt. 1

I'm going to break this photo set up into two posts since there are a bunch. Again, Sunette and I were in Addo Elephant Park on Saturday and Sunday to view the wildlife. It covers over 405,000 acres and is home to over 400 elephants, black rhino, lions, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You basically are driving through the bush hoping to come across a few animals. They do have watering holes which are always good places to catch a glimpse. Here are some shots from Saturday. I'll post Sunday's tomorrow.

Edit:  My blogging software, MarsEdit, is driving me a little batty.  It's screwing with my categories and not posting the pics correctly.  Hmmmm....

Double Drift

Well we returned from our visit to Double Drift game reserve and Addo Elephant Park today. It was a wonderful few days. This post will just be about Double Drift and I'll post some pics and what not from Addo tomorrow.

Double Drift is a game reserve covering over 57,000 acres located about an hour from Hogsback, SA, just south of Alice, SA. They have rhinos, a few elephants, zebra, giraffe and tons more. We've been there once before and had a nice experience, seeing rhino and a bunch of other things. This time we went down on Friday afternoon with Sunette's parents and two other friends. It was a little slow on the sightings, but we did run across this big guy.

After we made one drive, then headed over to some little cottages inside the park overlooking the Great Fish River. The cottages were great and we had a fantastic braai (grill-out) that night under the stars.

The next morning Sunette and I got up before the dawn to make one more drive, then head to Addo. Of course, being in the bush you're more than likely to run into a few neighbors. This guy was waiting for me under the suitcase as we were getting ready to leave.

We ushered him out of course and continued on with the drive. As the sun was coming up there were some gorgeous settings for a couple tree shots. I'm trying to get shots of all the different trees that we'll do a collection of at the house maybe. Here's a silhouette of a Kiepersol Tree and a Thorn Tree. Those things look mean, and they're all over the place.

The drive through the reserve that morning was gorgeous. We didn't see a bunch of animals unfortunately but the Aloes were blooming and made for some nice shots.

We did catch a couple zebra checking us out.

From Double Drift we headed to Addo. Tomorrow I'll post shots and a description of Addo Elephant Park.

From the Top

Today Sunette and I decided to hop in the truck and see how close we could get to Hog 1 before we had to make the rest of the way by trek. We didn't think we were actually going to try to make the top today, just get an idea of where to start from. Well once we got there we decided to go on ahead and hike to the top. It was a pretty demanding hike, but was well worth it. Here's the view from the top.

Tomorrow we head to Double Drift game reserve to see if we can spy some animals. Then we head to Addo elephant park on Saturday and Sunday to do the same. Hopefully I'll be able to post some nice game pics in the next day or so. Oh and for everyone back home...how's work?

Couple of pics

I've been away from the 'puter all weekend while I was at my buddy Clay's doing a little fishing for Speckled Trout this weekend. We had a wonderful time hanging with his family and we got a chance to catch a few nice fish in the meantime.

Here are a few photos that I've taken recently that I haven't posted. Of course, you can always check out my Flickr if you just can't get enough.

The last photo I took this afternoon and quickly realized I made a rookie mistake. I didn't even look at my ISO settings as I was snapping away. Come to find out, I had manually set the ISO to 1600 on a previous few photos and it completely introduced too much noise into the photos. Oh well, I'll reshoot 'em tomorrow.

Golden's Foundry

Eric and I went out again this past Saturday for a little photo expedition.  We first met for breakfast at Fountain City Coffee on Broadway.  If you're in Columbus and you're looking for coffee, drive right past the St. Arbucks and stop at Fountain City.  You'll be glad you did.  Not to mention that they've got the best scones I've ever eaten.  Eric can vouch, he had a blueberry, while I had the white chocolate raspberry.  Mmmmm.

After breakfast we were trying to figure out where to go shoot when I decided to ride him by Golden's Foundry. Our buddy John works there, his family has owned it for generations, and he just happened to be working on Saturday.  I rang him up and within 5 minutes we were starting "the tour".  Sweet!

Below are some of the shots that I was pleased with.  It was a little tougher assignment since we couldn't camp out and tweak settings.  We were basically snapping while we walked.  Which makes it tough in a dark environment.  It would've been great to setup the tripod and get some really nice, crisp images, but that wasn't an option at the time.  I had to jack up my ISO, slow the shutter speed and hope I held the camera still.  Still it was fun.

 

A Camera, A Mill, and the hard way in

This Saturday afforded my buddy Eric and I an opportunity to get out and shoot some more photos on one of our little Photo Journeys, for lack of a better term. We've done it a couple times before and decided on an old abandoned mill on the banks of the Chattahoochee in downtown Columbus. We scoped out the place for a few minutes and quickly came to the conclusion that there was not going to be an easy way in, and it may not even be possible, but we were going to try.

See, the walls of the mill go right down to the waters edge and all the windows and doors were locked up tight. Hmmm...we just want to take some photos. Well we saw this iron structure stretching from the bank out to the back of the mill. The only thing was that it was about 20 feet off the water and what you were standing on was about 1/4" thick. Thankfully there were handholds. Here's the structure looking from the mill side back to the bank on our way back:

And here's a shot looking at the back of the mill from the dam.

So once we got across we came to a covered wooden platform that was eaten up by an old fire and missing some pretty big chunks. This platform was about 20 feet above the old turbines of the mill. The platform stretched out to the water and the dam that served the mill. We tried to find a way inside, by climbing up and over a tin wall into this out-shed off the back of the building, but there were no openings. We did find an old book in there that turned into a couple cool shots.

We thought that was the end of the line, but as we climbed back up and out over the wall, Eric took a quick glance across the roof and saw an open window. Eureka. Here was our opportunity to get a few shots and do some exploring.

This place has been deserted quite a while, but you can see evidence of the random visitor...like us. I ended up only getting a few shots I liked, but I'll post several so you get a sense of the inside of the mill.

I did manage to squeeze off a couple shots of Eric to demonstrate our tour. Unfortunately, I didn't even take a shot of the mill itself to give an idea of what we're looking at. Next time. This was definitely an adventurous outing and we had a blast, got a few decent shots out of it too.

We're gonna change it up a bit next weekend and shoot some different subjects. Hey, if there are any pro guys out there that see this blog, ie. Daley or Dustin, please let me know what I can do better either from composition or from a post processing standpoint. I'm using Aperture 2, not PS, so I don't do any layer work. Just your typical color correction, sharpening, and maybe some vignetting. Let me know what you think!

Tough Guy

There's this tough little joker I know. His body has been beaten up a little and he's got lots of issues that nag him. Things that would make me whine and snivel, he just takes in stride. Yeah he gets ornery some times, but who wouldn't. I really wish I could just take half of his burden for him, but I know I'm not strong enough to carry it. He knows my voice, but I don't know that he can really see my face. That makes me sad, but to him, maybe my voice is enough. He's a tough little T-monster and he's got 100% of the love that is in my heart.