To know and love a place in Daydreaming on the Porch

There’s no place like home. In life and in photography, a closer look at the familiar can often reveal truth and beauty [and] …sometimes the most revealing photographs are of the places we know best. When you shoot an area you know in your bones…it touches on something primal. Familiarity and intimate knowledge of the subject come to light and manifest themselves in the frame…

Jim Brandenburg in his article and photo spread in the April 2016 edition of National Geographic

I’ve long admired Jim Brandenburg’s photography and have two of his early books, Chased by the Light and Looking for Summer, in which he daily chronicles life in Minnesota, his home state and inspiration for much of his photography, even though as a National Geographic photographer he has traveled and taken pictures all over the world. His latest article and book project is “93 Days of Spring.”

http://nature365.tv/presentation-du-projet

I can relate very strongly to what he photographs and writes about because I love the geography and Nature of the area around me in coastal South Carolina. For years, I have been back to the same places in all seasons of the year, and each time I have a new appreciation for the place and the objects, creatures, landscapes, flowers, and countless little details from corners of the natural world that I visit and see with new eyes each time.

It happened yesterday when for the third or fourth time in a month, I trekked about 10 miles out to Magnolia Gardens and walked in wonder yet again among the paths between flower beds, shrubs and live oaks, soaking in the beauty, the fresh air and cool breezes of a very pleasant late Spring afternoon in May. My camera was busy the whole time, for like Brandenburg, I want to record my vision of life as I know it best, and where best to do that but the most intimately familiar landscapes that I know.

Yes, I dream of the time when I can get on the road for long trips again to special places across this magnificent country, with it unending bounty of natural wonders, but for now I am content to visit again and again the close-by places that give me peace amid the beauty of Nature where I feel most at home.

Below are some recent scenes my camera captured, which to me distill the essence of the places I visit. In addition to the gardens and parks in the immediate Charleston area, I love to explore the backroad of adjacent Dorchester County and for many years now have been recording scenes along those country roads. I have to record what I see. It’s makes life all the more precious and meaningful.

Last updated May 26, 2016