Sights and Sounds Seventy-Eight

As promised here's a video of our weekend in the mountains. I kind of did a rushed job and in hindsight i can see shot i could have done better but overall for a quickie i am pretty happy with the results. The music is by a Swedish band called First Aid Kit. They are obviously heavily influenced by old time country music. They remind me a little of Neko Case. The song "Emmylou"which i used was chosen before we even went away and even though it refers to more winter type weather i still think it fits the footage. All the footage was shot by Dusti and myself with our two Canons the T2i and the T4i.
Enjoy.

Sights and Sounds Seventy-Seven

We just got back from a long weekend in the mountains. We stayed with my brother and Mike for the first two days and then stayed at the Pisgah Inn on top of the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the drive up we stopped at Table Rock Mountain for a picnic. We were going to go on a walk but the heat was blistering so we decided to head on to Brevard. We did a little shopping in Brevard then went to Simons. We ate out that night at a small restaurant in downtown Brevard called Falls Landing. It was pretty decent. When we got back to Simons we were both pretty tired and were in bed by 9!

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was the two walks we went on. On Saturday we went to Triple Falls waterfall with Mike and Simon. It was a pretty small walk but it was nice nonetheless. Below are a couple of shot of the waterfalls.

Yesterday we did a little more of a hike than just a walk. After driving up on to the Blue Ridge Parkway we found a decent trail that would take us to the top on a mountain. It was a really cool walk. After parking we walked through some woods which opened out into a meadow. It was full of flowers, butterflies and bees. In the picture below you can see Dusti walking towards the meadow. It's right above her head in the distance. The mountain to her right was what we ended up climbing and after about an hour we reached the top and that is where i took the panoramic shot of Dusti. It was a pretty awesome view.

After getting back to the parking lot about 2 hours after we started we downed some water then headed to Waynesville for lunch. We ate at Clydes which was like old Alex's that used to be in Charleston (decent food cheap but nothing to  special).  After a little window shopping we then headed back up to the Parkway and to the Pisgah Inn.  Here's a couple of panoramic shot this morning at sunrise.

I filmed a lot of the trip and will compile a short video later in the week so stay tuned!  Oh here's a couple of bunnies and a chipmunk for good measure! These little guys greeted us outside our balcony this morning.

Sights and Sounds Seventy-Six

It was July 4th yesterday and Dusti and I decided to get in to the spirit and watch the fireworks at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant. We rode our bikes armed with our two cameras and two tripods and headed to the old bridge that used to connect Sullivan's Island with Mount Pleasant. We figured this vantage point would be good for a panoramic view of all the firework displays from Folly Beach, Downtown, Mount Pleasant, Sullivan's and Isle of Palms.
I experimented with a couple of panoramic shots  in which I combined several photos together using the photomerge option in Adobe Photoshop. I watched a couple of really good tutorials by Richard Harrington on how to do this. I was pretty pleased with the results. Below are two shots one of the sunset which combined five photos and a firework shot which combined three shots. You can click on the image to see a larger version.

Here are some other firework shots.