Shiloh Battlefield

As I mentioned before, because I had neglected to turn my clock back to central time, I arrived at the battlefield an hour or more before anyone else, including the park rangers. I didn't let that stop me; I just drove through the park trying to follow the prescribed route so I wouldn't miss anything.

The main object of the exercise was photography. I've read enough about Shiloh to have a good handle on what went on. I just wanted to see the park with few people around and take advantage of the early morning light.

The symbolism of the cannons distributed about the park seems at odds with the peace and serenity of the park today, nearly 150 years after the battle.

The log cabin above is Shiloh Church, which gave its name to the battle. Much of the battle took place in the immediate vicinity. The structure was destroyed shortly after the war ended and this cabin was erected on the original site in about 1875. There is a new church nearby begun in 1929; it was completed and dedicated in 1952.

Wandering around as I was, without a map, I apparently missed the road that would've taken me to the bluffs overlooking the Tennessee River. I knew the river was over there on the other side of these trees, but I never found my way over there. But I enjoyed sharing my morning in the park with the many deer and turkeys.

Most of these shots could just have easily been taken at Pea Ridge, Arkansas (Elkhorn Tavern). The Battle of Pea Ridge took place at the same time as Shiloh (in April 1862) about 400 miles west. I visited Pea Ridge early one morning in 2008. My great great grandfather, Samuel Langston, was wounded there on the second day at Pea Ridge.

The cannon shots at these battlefield parks always remind me of my favorite television production ever - Ken Burns' Civil War mini-series. And that, of course, was based on my favorite history book ever - Shelby Foote's Civil War Narrative.

 

I like the monuments which incorporate statuary best, but some of the lesser monuments are equally impressive in their stonework. The wide distribution of the monuments scattered across the large well-manicured acreage of some of the parks emphasizes the immensity of the struggle and honors the participants on both sides.

A Fine Visit

It was a wonderfully peaceful visit. Tony and Donna know that I'll come back every chance I get. (I've been doing it for 45 years now.) I usually like to get a family photo or two when I visit, but I don't always remember. Then, of course, every now and then someone will have his eyes closed or something and I'll have no fallback.

In this case, the "family" photograph should have been Tony and Donna with Satchel. But Satchel decided somewhere along the line that he doesn't like cameras, or having his picture taken. So in this shot, Murphy is standing in for Satchel. But, in the interest of full disclosure, Murphy was clowning around; he laid down and turned away at the last minute, then laughed at me. Well, maybe I imagined that. Fortunately, I'd taken another picture a couple seconds before (before Donna was ready) and was able to combine the two shots so everyone appears to be paying attention.

Here's Satchel, later in the day. He's been for a walk with Donna and couldn't be bothered to leave the room when I pulled out the camera - he just glared at me. Maybe next time I visit Satchel will cut me some slack. He's a handsome fellow - and photogenic, whether he realizes it or not.

This shot of Murphy is my payment for his standing in for Satchel in the first shot. He's a handsome pup too, but he should work on curbing his naked ambition. I tried to explain to him that all fame was fleeting. . . but he just wanted me to "make him famous".

A Fog on the Marsh - II

Just how many ways can you crop a scene and maintain the interest of your audience? I don't Don't know. . . maybe we'll find out with this post. The importance of the composition of each shot is paramount, I think. The balance has to be there. The foreground is the easiest thing to change, whether you move the viewpoint, or height, or adjust the angle slightly. Whatever the answer is to the question posed above, I do know there's not a lot you can write about such similar scenes without losing the audience. . .

In these two shots, note the 2 birds on the left light pole (Yeah, I know. . . BIRDS again!)

I may have been wrong about the birds. The whatever-it-was on the left is probably a bird, but I'm thinking it looks at least a little bit like a lobster. . .

Okay, false alarm. It was a bird after all.

Now they're both gone - and we're left with just pictures of the dock, the marsh, and the fog. Oh! And the memories.

A Fog on the Marsh - I

Up early again this morning, but this time it's really different. In all the times I've visited since Tony and Donna moved here, I've never seen it foggy like this. If serenity rules the marsh on a "normal" day, it becomes absolutely ethereal in the mist.

In such a small geographical area (the back yard and dock) there are only so many photo opportunities available in a given session. In this case, the fog itself further limited what I could shoot from the dock. It struck me that each shot this morning seems to match a previous shot I'd taken under clear blue skies. Maybe I'll do a post on comparative views sometime.

I love the trees in the background just fading out in all of these, but as interesting to me in the one above is the complex reflection of the dock on the surface of the water.

I'm not sure exactly what it is about this one. It may be the diagonal line of the dock and the area of marsh grass in the left middle ground. It would have been better if the lower curve of the marsh grass was parallel to the curve of the banister but. . . maybe I'll "fix" it. Yeah, I think I can do that. . .

In the picture above, the only trace of "real" color is in the flag at left and the canvas on the nearby boat. Overall, in both these two pictures, I like the way all the solids seem to be floating across the middle of the picture in the gray. The interesting contrast here - again, in addition to tonal contrasts - is the way the trees fade to gray in the upper half of the pictures and the sweetgrass reflections change to the sky's reflection with sharp, clearly defined edges.

High Tide Is a Relative Term

When Tony and Donna arose looking for coffee, I was reading about Lincoln's "Team of Rivals". I followed Tony up to his office where he introduced me to the frustrations of sudoku, much as he had the frustrations of golf many years ago. Possibly out of habit, he checked the tide tables - Donna says people who live on the marsh "live and die by the tides" - and was surprised to find that today and tomorrow promised an extraordinary 7.1 foot tide. And sure enough. . .

The view above, from the back porch, shows Boone Hall Creek higher than I've ever seen it. I suspect occasional storm surges were probably higher, but what surprised me was that when I had been out there earlier (yesterday's pictures) I was sure that was high tide. Obviously, like so many other things, High Tide is relative.

The real (and really) high tide occasioned a visit to the dock so, with coffee and cigarettes and camera the three of us traipsed out to the dock to survey nature. The egret in the picture above might not have minded Tony, Donna and me, but he wasn't going to share the dock with Murphy, Ellen's Westie.

Absolutely everything is interesting to Murphy; a reed floating by or a mullet trying to fly. Young and curious describes Murphy pretty well.

Compare the level of tide in this picture (or the first two) with the level in yesterday's pictures, remembering that those pictures were taken only a couple hours prior to these.

All the birds in the area are not as quiet as the egret. This C-17 Globemaster III is a common sight around Charleston. The Air Force operates from Charleston under the Air Mobility Command.

With the egret elsewhere, Murphy was the only wildlife available to shoot (no pun intended). He appears to be "with the program" in these pictures but, believe me, it was the persistence of the photographer that was paramount in this case.

I don't know whether or not Murphy likes to swim, but he certainly likes to wade. When the water comes up into the yard, you're never quite sure just what comes with it. Murphy takes it as a personal challenge to find anything of interest the incursion of the water may have brought.

First One Up

Visiting some places, you might stay abed till you hear the sounds of the household awakening. Not so, here. Being the first one up is a great pleasure and reminds you - if you're in need of reminding - that early morning is, without a doubt, the very best time of the day.

It was another fine day on the marsh. When I arrived late yesterday, it was low tide. Now the water's up, the sun is warming, the breeze is light and cool - the weather, in short, is gorgeous.

It's easy to see egrets on the move at this time of day when so much is in shadow. Their swift flight would seem to be at odds with the stillness of wetlands, but their silent grace seems to enhance the early morning serenity rather than detract from it.

Usually, the "stillness" is a mistaken impression anyway. Even when the egrets have settled, and the breeze is not enough to sway the sweetgrass, eventually you'll notice an occasional reed floating on the surface, in or out with the tide. Then perhaps you'll hear a fish break the surface. . . or see a ripple in the glass. . .

And if the breeze should fail completely, you can retire to the porch to thwart the "no see 'ems" and still enjoy the morning.

McClellanville and Fort Moultrie

Alright! I had my fun on North Carolina's Outer Banks and now it's time to head back to Charleston to visit with Tony and Donna.

I took the back roads - well, state highways, anyway - rather than the interstate and decided to drop by the little town of McClellanville, SC on my way south. It's a little fishing village that Tony showed me a couple of years ago, up the coast from Mount Pleasant.

I guess I'd have to say it was a "sleepy" little fishing village since, when I arrived there in the early afternoon it looked like the fishing fleet was tied up and I didn't get the sense that there was a lot of work going on.

It was a pleasant enough stop, however, and I got a few shots of the waterfront. Maybe Stephen will see something in them that he'll want to paint.

I still had a little spare time when I arrived in Mount Pleasant, so I drove around a little bit on the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island. Not much was really going on in either place, so I stopped at Fort Moultrie, the Fort that Maj. Robert Anderson abandoned in 1861 in favor of the more defensible Fort Sumter.

El Día de las Aves

El Día de las Aves, of course, means The Day of the Birds. I've had birds scattered throughout these posts, but this post is different... it's all about the birds. 

Specifically, all these pictures were taken on the 2 1/2 hour Ocracoke - Cedar Island ferry crossing. I did work in a nap after wearing myself out, but I spent much of the trip entertaining Pat and the other passengers with my efforts to get mugshots of the intercoastal avian community. It's really not as simple as one might expect, though regular practice would help, I'm sure.

First of all, just looking up is a challenge for some of us with balance issues, so I generally try to lean against my pickup or some suitably stout infrastructure. Then, on the ferry, the wind is trying to blow you overboard. And, of course, there's the ability of the birds to change headings and altitudes with no warning whatsoever.

Before I really got started, Pat suggested I get a picture of "Bird Island", which I would otherwise have missed. I'm glad he did; that's a lot of birds. . .

Now, back to my performance. Using a point and shoot camera's LCD to follow an elusive gull would allow one to maintain some situational awareness because one can make use of his or her peripheral vision. If, on the other hand, one is trying to shoot with an SLR - one eye stuck in the viewfinder and the other blocked by the camera and one's hands - a photographer's got a real handicap to deal with.

With a wide-angle, you can keep the subject bird(s) in the frame with minimal effort. Zooming in to get close-ups, however, carries its own hazards. The SLR photographer, with the big lens zoomed in for the close-up, chases his target across the sky with many of the same sensations of a B-17 ball turret gunner.

I found that standing against the pickup trying to maintain my balance (which the guy in the ball turret didn't have to do) and keep the feathered bogey in the crosshairs can lead to some pretty wild gyrations on my part.

By the time I got this picture of the enemy trying to escape into the afternoon sun, I was nearly standing on my head (and sliding against the fender of the pickup). The sudden glare of the sun in the viewfinder made me break off my attack. Luckily for me, I was able to recover before I crashed. It was intense, but I managed to come through unscathed.

Since I got back home I've been studying all these birds pretty carefully, but this one has me baffled. Where does he stow his landing gear?

And there's another thing I don't understand. There are seagulls everywhere. Where'd all the pelicans go? (That's a rhetorical question, Stephen.)

This looks like a good place to end. Pat and I arrived at the Cedar Island landing well before sundown and made it to Morehead City just about dark so we didn't have the sun in our eyes for too long on the drive back to Wilson. But, despite a number of naps during the day, both of us were ready to crash on arrival.