British Car Show

British Car Show

One part of the Greenville Scottish Games that I enjoy is the British Car Show. It is held on Furman University's shaded mall in front of the main gate to the games. There always seems to be a slightly different mix of cars in the show each year. Many of the cars are older restorations, but there are sometimes new British branded automobiles as well. The new Lotus sports cars are almost always a crowd pleaser.

The car show is now kind of a sentimental favorite of mine since it was some of my photographs of cars from a couple of years ago that got me invited to be a photographer for the games last year and now this year. I wasn't able to get many photographs from the car show last year due to the VIP's schedule. However, I did make it a point to get some shots from there this year.

This particular photograph shows that the cars are lined up for quite a long ways down the mall. In fact, they are lined up down both sides of the mall. Quite an impressive collection of classic British automobiles. The photograph is also a handheld, three-shot HDR composite so that the shadows are not blocked out to complete black. I tried to process the image so that it would look fairly natural without the over exaggerated colors that HDR can sometime cause. It's not perfect, but I think it gets close to it.

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Published in Fete Greenville

Some of my photographs from the Scottish Games were just published in Fete Greenville. Fete Greenville is a monthly, online magazine about events happening in Greenville, South Carolina. My photographs are on pages 5, 11, and 43.

It is kind of neat to see my photographs used in some of those layouts.

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The Royal Highland Fusiliers

Royal Highland Fusiliers

The gentlemen in the above photograph are members of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (2 SCOTS). These eight men were the honor guard for the VIPs of the Greenville Scottish Games. They recently returned home from deployment in Afghanistan.

I find it fascinating how military uniforms and traditions vary even between nations as closely related as the US and Great Britain.

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2011 Greenville Scottish Games

2011 Greenville Scottish Games

The Greenville Scottish Games were held this year on Saturday, May 28 at Furman University. This was the second year in a row that I volunteered to photograph the games for them. Unlike last year where I was predominately charged with following Prince Edward, I was able to take in the games at my own pace. Both approaches were interesting and fun. However, this year I got to see and experience more of the games than I did last year. I also didn't have to run backwards near as much as I did last year while follow Prince Edward. ;-)

This photograph is the main field which is surrounded by the clans' tents and the review stand. Paris Mountain is visible in the background. I thought that the overall view was reminiscent of photographs that I've seen of the Scottish Highlands. Granted, the Highlands don't usually get temperatures around 95 degrees F with near 100% humidity. Still, it seemed an appropriate view of the games' character.

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A Work in Progress

Painting the Greenville Scottish Games

An addition to this year's opening ceremonies for the Greenville Scottish Games, was this painter. He was creating an interpretive piece to capture the spirit of the games which would later be presented to Prince Edward as a gift. I didn't get to watch him the entire time, but it was interesting to watch him work while the pipe bands were performing.

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Massed Pipe Bands

Massed Bands

During the opening ceremonies, all of the participating Pipe & Drum bands gathered together to perform for His Royal Highness, Prince Edward. It was quite impressive with between 400 to 500 musicians on the field together. They performed a new march which had been written to commemorate Prince Edward's visit to Greenville, South Carolina. An international competition was held for the composition of this particular march. Mr. Donald Patrick Sargent of Ashhurst, New Zealand composed "Greenville's Salute to the Earl of Wessex" which was the selected winner of the competition.

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Getting Up Early

Sunrise at Furman

All of the landscape photography books say that you should plan to get up early so you can catch the sunrise and the morning's "magic hour". When I was covering the Greenville Scottish Games, I was told to be there around 6 am. The sun had already risen, but wasn't yet visible due to nearby Paris Mountain. It didn't take long for it to climb above Paris Mountain though, and give a nice silhouette effect to some of the trees on the Furman University campus. The colors in this image are due to using a Shady White Balance setting when processing the image. There was a bit more blue in the sky at the time. However, I thought the extra warmth (i.e. orange and yellow tones) that the Shady White Balance setting adds to an image provided a better overall color palette.

When I process my images, I usually try a variety of White Balance settings to determine which might be the better match for how I want the image to appear. Sometimes it helps to get the White Balance perfect. Other times, the White Balance can add a creative choice of color tonalities to an image. It depends on what you want or need the image to do.

Of course, I wasn't really needed to photograph anything so early in the morning. I am glad that I did arrive that early though. I was able to get this photograph and a couple of behind-the-scenes photographs of people finishing preparations for the games that I would not have been able to get otherwise.

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The Best View

The Best View

When I saw these girls had climbed up on to the light-pole, I knew it would make for a good picture. That vintage-styled clock added just a bit of extra flair. To me, the photograph captures the excitement of the parade and some of downtown Greenville's personality.

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There She Is ...

Miss America

The current Miss America, Caressa Cameron, was one of the parade participants. She also sang the US National Anthem at the Scottish Games the next day. I don't think that I got a single bad picture of her on either day, although the one above is my favorite of all of them.

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Parade VIPs

Parade VIPs

Here is a photograph of of the VIPs watching the Great Scot! parade from the reviewing stand. His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex is waving to a parade participant, the Mayor of Greenville is next to him, and one of the Clan Chiefs is on the right of the photograph.

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Great Scot! Parade

Spectators

I know it was quite on the blog here last week. I apologize for that, but I was getting ready for something. Now that it is finished and have approval to post the photographs, I can finally talk about it here on the blog.

More after the jump.

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted about permissions to use some photographs that I took at last year's Greenville Scottish Games in this year's program. I thought it would be a good opportunity, so I agreed. However, it didn't end with just those photographs. I was also selected to be one of their volunteer photographers for this year's event. More importantly, this year the Greenville Scottish Games had a major VIP ... His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex. It is the first time that a member of the British Royal Family has visited a Scottish/Highland Games in the US, perhaps even outside of Scotland. It also marked the first visit of a member of the Royal family to South Carolina and the Upstate. To top if off, I was the "Principal" photographer for the Games tasked with documenting the Prince's visit to the Parade as well as the Games. Needless to say, it was an exciting opportunity.

The Festivities started Friday night with the Great Scot! Parade in downtown Greenville. The review stand was in front of City Hall which ironically put Prince Edward directly across from a local hot dog restaurant called "The Hot Dog King". I thought it was quite humorous placement. The parade itself was fun to cover. All of the clans attending the games were present, as well as all of the pipe-and-drum bands. There were also various other dignitaries, Miss Teen South Carolina, Miss South Carolina, all of the current Miss South Carolina contestants, and finally Miss America.

How often am I going to get to cover an event with a member of the Royal Family and Miss America?

The photograph above shows just a few of the many spectators that lined the streets early to see the parade.

I am still excited about this past weekend.

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