A week ago, I went down to Georgetown, South Carolina to photograph a couple of properties for an upcoming book project that I'm working on. This has been a unique experience for me because I, like most photographers, tend to spend weeks or months working a location when it comes to book projects. In this case, I have have had only a couple of days per property. This has certainly been challenging to say the least but in some ways it has really been a great learning experience. I have worked in the advertising industry for a number of years and have learned from my time as an art director that, when your client is flying you and a photographer hundreds of miles away to photograph a location, you don't have the option of coming home without any images. So, there is something refreshing and liberating about arriving a spot and accepting the fact that, no matter what, you've got to capture the essence of where you are at.
The down side to this is obviously that conditions, such as lighting, view-point, etc, can often be less than optimal. However, it also forces one to make images that you would possibly pass over in a better situation. The image that I've included above is of a blackwater branch that borders the property that I was visiting. "Visiting" is somewhat misleading because, when I arrived, there were heaps of "No Trespassing" signs and, so, since I'm not a fan of buckshot I had to rethink my strategy. It then occurred to me that one of the big reasons that the property was preserved was to protect the riparian corridor for this wetland area. I then realized that if I jumped the guard rail along the highway I would be able to gain a fairly decent view of the branch and as it turned out I was, thankfully, the only one who ended up firing a shot.
Clay
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