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RustedRail's Ramblings is where I share some of my favorite photos along with other thoughts on life.
Wood you like to sit?
On our way back from Georgia this week, we stopped at Table Rock State Park located off of South Carolina Highway 11 in Pickens County, to stretch and take a few photographs. The Visitor Center is located on a small lake which has a nice pier for fishing. The main section of the park (lodge, camping, etc...) is located on the other side of the highway. Out in front of the visitor center, there are several sets of rockers inviting folks to sit down for a few. The image was taken with my Canon R7 and a 55mm/f2 Soviet-Era Helios M42 lens, using an adapter I purchased to make it fit on the RF mount. The lens is completely manual when it is on the camera and you have to adjust the settings on the R7 to "shoot without lens" for it to work. I'll share some more test shots with it, but it is fun to use and makes me think more than the regular 50mm.
Happy 2023
My goal for 2023 is to get out and take more pictures. We kicked that off right on New Year's Day with a drive to Campbell's Covered Bridge, which is the only remaining covered bridge in South Carolina. They are in the middle of restoration and improvements at the park, so it was challenging to find angles where there was no construction materials visible. The entire bridge has been repainted, so it has lost a little of the charm of aging that an old timer like this is entitled to. However, the fresh coat of paint will keep it in good shape for years to come. This was the first time out with my new Canon R7 camera and the 50mm RF 1.8 lens. After shooting on a 5D full frame, it will take me awhile to get used to the 1.6x crop factor. The camera is easy to use so far and I'm quite happy with the sharpness of the "nifty 50". Holiday Spirit
Even small traditions can help make us appreciate the season. One tradition of mine is to open a tin of McClelland Holiday Spirit each Christmas to enjoy over the holidays. McClelland stopped production in 2017, this years tin was made a couple of years before that in 2015, so it's now 7 years old. It's an aromatic tobacco with flavors of Dark Rum, Cocoa, and pecans added to the base of tobaccos. I'm not a huge aromatic smoker, but somehow the flavor combination says Christmas to me. I enjoy smoking it in my Savinelli Saint Nicholas pipes. Each year, they release their Christmas pipes which have different accents on the stem based on that year's edition. I buy the 320ex, which is an author shape and has a great texture and a size that I enjoy. Combined with the Holiday Spirit tobacco, it puts me into as much of a holiday spirit as I can muster.
Add in a glass of Papa Pilar's Dark Rum which compliments the flavors and it makes a great evening. I look back at 2022 and realize that I've managed to do a whopping six posts this year here on the blog. It's been a year full of changes, including relocating to a new state and also full of long hours of work. My primary goal for 2023 is to get into a habit of at least weekly posts here. That will challenge me to create new images, which will hopefully get me out more to enjoy the photography I love, but never make time for. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, however you celebrate it and I'll see you back here in 2023.
South Carolina
I lived in South Carolina from 2002 to 2013. Later this year we'll be relocating to the Upstate near Greer, South Carolina where my day job has opened a new facility. South Carolina has plenty of places I have not visited in years and I'm excited to get to visit and photograph them again. One location I'm looking forward to is Charleston and visiting the Yorktown at Patriots Point again as well as the other historical sites around the city. Here is a photo from the deck of the Yorktown which I took in 2014 on my last visit there.
Swirls - the visual appeal of pipes.
One of the wood choices for pipes is Arbutus which is also commonly referred to as Strawberry Wood for its color. Not as popular of a pipe making material as Briar, it can offer some very interesting grain patterns which can be brought out through sandblasting. Arbutus is also less dense than briar, so it is lighter which is a big advantage in a big pipe. This pipe from Morgan Pipes is from the Bones series which are pipes that come "unfinished" and will color naturally with smoking. This one in particular is a favorite of mine, as I really love the swirls which sort of remind me of "starry night" by VanGogh.
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