Lee Ann and I decided we wanted to visit a Barnes and Noble bookstore while we were in Myrtle Beach, and the closest one to where we were staying was at The Market Common, a 114-acre mixed-use village made up of boutiques, stores, restaurants and townhouse apartments.
It was chiseled out of land that in a prior life appears to have been part of an Air Force base and is a short jog from Myrtle Beach International Airport.
The biggest stores in the complex are Barnes and Noble and Pottery Barn, and it has a 14-screen cinema. Its major eateries are P.F. Chang's, Tupelo Honey Cafe, Gordon Biersch Brewery and Restaurant and King Street Grille.
Developers included a landscaped median featuring a gazebo and a couple of fountains as well as a scenic square park, Valor Memorial Garden, at its south end. The park contains two more fountains, a modest rectangular meadow and a tri-section rectangular pergola. One end of the pergola is shown in the photo leading off the post.
Across Farrow Street from the buildings are a winding pond, still another fountain, a healthy dose of palmetto trees and lots of green space with a bridge over the pond taking you to a much larger park complex loaded with athletic fields for soccer, softball and lap walking or running.
I didn't make it to the latter portion of the expansive area (and I'm not positive the athletic fields or park along Farrow are part of The Market Common), but I did cover most of the commercial and residential area.
As always, to view a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly useful when accessing the blog using a mobile device. To see a
full gallery of images from my shoot at The Market Common, click on the link in this sentence
Photo geek stuff: I used my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens equipped with a polarizing filter and took three different exposures for each composition so I could meld them into one during post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. The 8.0 f/stop was my constant during the shoot, which means my variable exposures were determined by the shutter speed. I used an ISO of 160 unless the full shot was in all shade, at which time I boosted the ISO to about 400 or 500.
Finding creative ways to photograph park visitors was what I had in mind with the above and below. I couldn't help but chuckle at the tough-looking expression on the dog above.
Directly across from Barnes and Noble (above) is this fountain (first below), where I happened to arrive at a fortuitous afternoon hour to catch the dramatic spot lighting. At the opposite end of the block in the media, there is yet another fountain (second below), which I captured using the entrance to Gordon Biersch Brewery and Restaurant as a backdrop.
Lately, I've found myself drawn to photographing more clocks (above), lampposts (first below) and interesting configurations of wild grass (second below). In the case of the grass, it was growing long enough to provide a sort of sheer cover on a path leading to a sidewalk along Howard Avenue into Valor Memorial Park.
And there is the thinly obscured cupola (above) and the foliage and tree trunk helping to frame the afternoon moon, which was just a few days away from becoming full ... and bloody.
The facade of Stone Theatres' Grand 14 cinema (above) and a portion of the outdoor seating area of Tupelo Honey Cafe (below).
I mentioned in the text that there were townhouses in the village. The ones above are near the south end of the complex. And I think I wrote something previously about there being fountains sprinkled about in The Market Common. The one below is one of the two in Valor Memorial Park.
Above: Just a composition to show a a branding sign juxtaposed with one of the stores.
I showed you a mostly straight-on shot of Barnes and Noble previously. Well, above is an angular look at Pottery Barn's facade.
Above: I debated whether to go with a super small aperture to get more pillars sharp in this shadow and pattern composition of the pergola. I elected to let the focus fade.
Above: The bridge over the pond leading from the green space across Farrow Parkway to the athletic fields, which are out of the picture to the right.
Next up: The Beach and the Boardwalk
Previously in this series:
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