Cents of Adrenaline

August 25, 2015 Tigerotor77W747-8I, 748, Allgäu, Bavaria, Bavarian Alps, Bayern, Grünten, Gruenten, Obertsdorf, Rubihorn, Schwaben, Sunrise, Sunset1 Comment

Since middle school, I always figured if I lived internationally it’d be in France — I spoke the language, I had studied abroad in the country, and I even visited the Caterpillar factory that was the reason behind my learning the language in the first place. It was also in Grenoble, I think, that my love of mountains was subconsciously awakened. It is thus admittedly strange that three of the past five Independence Days I’ve spent not in France but rather in Germany, and that the language I’m beginning to resort to is now German rather than French. This, the neighbor to what I thought would be my foreign language destination, is now my home for the next months. Round two began quietly, not in Stuttgart as before, but in the Allgäu, heart of the German Alps.

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Glimpse of Summer

April 7, 2015 Tigerotor77WBotany Bay, Mt. Pleasant, Pitt St Bridge, Sunrise, SunsetLeave a comment

Winter was rather cold in Charleston this year, though sometimes swings in weather bode well for colorful skies at dawn and dusk. I missed a good sunset two weeks ago so headed to Pitt St later that week to make up for it. Clouds extinguished the setting sun quickly, but the trees had started to bud: summer is coming!

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A Turbid Sunset

October 1, 2014October 1, 2014 Tigerotor77WCharleston skyline, Mt. Pleasant, Pitt St Bridge, Ravenel bridge, SunsetLeave a comment

In late August, I decided to give Pitt St another go-around. The week had been rainy but cleared as it neared Friday, leaving behind some clouds and making me hope the sunset would be a bombshell of color.

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Revisiting the familiar

July 21, 2014 Tigerotor77Wboneyard, Botany Bay, Cove Inlet, moonrise, Mt. Pleasant, Pitt St., Ravenel bridge, Sunrise, Sunset, supermoon2 Comments

In my time here so far, my two favorite places to photograph in the Charleston area are the Ravenel Bridge and Botany Bay. The bridge is simply majestic, though I don’t feel like I’ve depicted its full grandeur yet. Botany Bay at sunrise is the closest definition of tranquility that I’ve found here. Naturally, it’s difficult to photograph the boneyard at Botany Bay from a place other than Botany Bay, but there’s plenty of vantage points for the bridge. One week ago, I decided to check out a new location to shoot the bridge at sunset.

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Following the storm

July 4, 2014 Tigerotor77WDaniel Island, Fireworks, Sunset, Wando River, Wando River bridge4 Comments

The curious will note that a large number of my post titles are actually plays on words — water ways and waterways, “paw prints” as impressions of the Lion City, “essence of” vs. “a sense of” the Smokies, etc — and this one is no different. I didn’t actually follow Hurricane Arthur (thankfully hardly impacting Charleston) northward, but I was anxious to see if its aftermath would make for a decent sunset. After work on Independence Day-eve, I ventured out to see if there would be any color after the storm.

Although the forecast had called for only 30% cloud cover by sundown, clouds along the low horizon dampened my hopes for anything too impressive. The sun dropped into a clear zone before disappearing again above the trees, but then the sky started to turn. And kept turning. A photographer I respect wrote a post some time ago about the duality of sunsets: for colorful skies, there are actually two. From this same location earlier this year, I actually missed the second, more colorful one, so this time, between realizing I had a pretty decent vantage point of the Daniel Island fireworks and interested to see how the second colorburst would play out, I stayed for the second sunset.

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Roots

April 22, 2014 Tigerotor77Whobbies, Ravenel bridge, Sunset2 Comments

During a bout of spring cleaning, I placed my scale mode 963D next to a scale model U4000 on my bookshelf, positioning it only in a feigned loading position but otherwise not paying much attention to the arrangement on the shelf or what else was on the shelf. When I looked more carefully at the placement, however, I realized that it captured nearly every interest or hobby I have.

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Cold feet

January 29, 2014 Tigerotor77WDaniel Island, ice storm, Ravenel bridge, Shell Ring, Sunset2 Comments

I grew up outside of Chicago, where a “bad winter storm” typically meant at least a foot of snow followed by temperatures in the teens. Unless some heavy stuff is expected, in other words, nothing shuts down. In much of the South, even a forecast of 1/4″ of ice or 1″ of snow prompts school and business shutdowns. I scoffed at this initially, until I realized what it meant after the precipitation had finished.

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An Italian Rush

December 7, 2013 Tigerotor77WBoboli Gardens, Firenze, Florence, Piazza del Campo, Ponte del Vecchio, Siena, Sunset, Torre del Mangia1 Comment

In some senses, I dreaded going on my second business trip because I knew I’d work at least three twelve hour days — no easier fare than my work life in Charleston. However, at the end of the trip, I knew I’d be able to visit friends in Italy — the same friends whom I had met in Paris in 2011. This time, the destination was Florence, and rather than rush the trip like I did in 2011 (three full days in the city), I decided I could do better: I’d halve the time and be touristing in Florence for less than 36 hours.

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