Myrtle Beach trek, Part I: Almost-lost shoot is now one to remember

Some 12 years ago, I stopped into the then-Cord Camera shop across from the Star-News complex on Delaware Street in downtown Indianapolis, where at some point I lamented to one of the staff members about how I inadvertently erased images on a memory card that I had already recorded over.

Surprisingly, he told me there was recovery software that could restore most, if not all, of those "lost" images. So the next time I was in the shop, I brought in the memory card, and he took it and processed it through such software. Sure enough ... he found almost every one of the images I thought I'd lost forever. I remember that they were from an August 2006 shoot of the Wright Brothers Band performing a free concert at Garfield Park's MacAllister Amphitheater. Sadly, that and all of Indy's Cord Camera shops have since closed, but I owe it a huge thanks for saving my images back in 2006.

I hadn't repeated that somewhat traumatic experience of losing or inadvertently erasing images on a memory card again ... until last week on a trip to Myrtle Beach with Lee Ann. The images were from a personal "documentary" type shoot at a large tourist attraction called Broadway at the Beach. We had visited this place briefly on a prior visit to Myrtle Beach; my shoot last week was much more thorough.

I had no indication during the shoot that there was anything wrong. It wasn't until I got back to the room and tried to upload the photos to my laptop that the fright took hold. All I could find on the card were images I'd taken (but not erased) from a shoot on the previous day. I was totally perplexed. I put the card back into the camera, and still saw nothing but stuff from the two-day-old shoot.

I was demoralized to lose a day's work like this, and to do so without any apparent or logical reason. Dispirited, I immediately sunk into mope mode. I didn't feel like talking or doing anything. Lee Ann was wonderful to pick up on that immediately.

A career IT person who once also worked in portrait photography, Lee Ann went online to visit a couple of photography troubleshooting websites, where she got a strong hint that the issue I experienced could have been caused by a virus that the laptop picked up at some point after I used it the day before while accessing the Internet using the resort's unsecured Wi-Fi. Not only was the resort's Wi-Fi unsecure, but I had neglected to disconnect from it after using it the previous day -- and I had left the memory card in the USB port. I know better; I just spaced it.

Lee Ann then found some image recovery software online. She downloaded it, installed it on the laptop and ran the program. In about 20 minutes or thereabouts, she'd found all but about the first 80 of the 800 images I thought I had lost. Considering that I had been shooting each composition in triplicate for later processing in high-dynamic range (HDR) software, those missing 80 images meant I really had lost only about 25 or so compositions. And lucky for me, those images were the least important in the shoot.

The photos recovered with the restoration software are what you see in this post. So it's a pretty special one to me. Thanks to a pretty special person.

My choice for the lead-off photo no doubt is inspired by our visits last fall to Brookgreen Gardens at Murrells Inlet, south of Myrtle Beach. If you recall, Brookgreen Gardens is a rarity in that it exhibits scores of sculptures in open spaces displayed in various landscapes -- meadows, along ponds, in heavy foliaged areas and even under cover. The Brookgreen Gardens visit pushed me to do closeups of sculpture sections and to try varied vantage points, such as my low angle on this installation sculpture at Broadway at the Beach.

The lead-off photo shows one of quite a few sculptures of children that can be found in the same general vicinity at Broadway at the Beach. You can see one of the others below and the rest are in the full gallery (link in next paragraph).

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the photo. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog while using a mobile device. To see a full gallery of my shots at Broadway at the Beach, click on the link you see in this sentence.

The two shots of the totem above reflect different approaches in handling the composition. At left is the scene that was very close to how I saw it at Tiki Jim's restaurant. It caught my eye because everything was completely dark except for the eyes, teeth and the coloring you see in the hair and brand name. In post-processing, I added some shadow detail to give it perspective, but as my eyes saw it, the area on either side of the totem -- again -- was total darkness.

The version on the right is what resulted from normal processing in high-dynamic range (HDR) software. By "normal processing," I mean I did very little (if anything) once I melded the three images of different exposures using my normal processing settings in Photomatix editing software. If nothing else, you can see how even the minimum HDR processing can introduce substantial detail and pop to images without making them look like, as a former photo club member once described it to me, "clown vomit" (yes, Erik, I've not forgotten that).

Above and below: Perspective and closeup shots of an installation art pool sculpture near one of the park's accesses. 

Lee Ann and I dined at Paula Deen's (above) on our previous visit to Broadway at the Beach, but we didn't make it around to the other side of the man-made lake to get this view of the establishment. Deen's southern cooking restaurant is on the upper floor; a gift shop consumes the bottom floor. Below is a view of a Yankee Candle store, which is not far from Paula Deen's. 

That house you see above is intentionally tilted. In fact, all is not right about the house at all, which I'm sure is part of the attraction's allure. As you'll see in a photo down below, the printing on the bottom outside of the house is upside down. Below is a better view of the water slide in the background of the installation pool sculpture photo above. 

When I first came upon the the beast you see below (along with its bright green four-legged partner, which is not pictured), the Christmas shop shown above was in the background. I moved around to get the shot below and avoid that bizarre juxtaposition.

Above: Here is that upside down signage on the tilted house that I mentioned higher up. 

Above and next eight below are examples of other interesting signage I came upon on the grounds. 

Above: Gulls and pigeons constituted the bulk of the 80 images I totally lost -- the ones at the start of my shoot -- but there were still two dozen or more others at the start point of recovered images that gave me some good ones to show off. The fowl were not intimidated by human passers-by, which enabled me to get pretty close to photograph them without them flying off scared. It also told me that a lot of the visitors probably feed them. There are more examples in the full gallery. 

Above: I figured I should present at least one of the castle and waterfall shots I made. I took quite a few. 

Above: I visited a local craft brewery while at Broadway at the Beach. I sampled a flight of eight beers at Liberty Brewery, and unfortunately ... none of them stood out for me. The previous day, Lee Ann and I had dined at a restaurant in the Market Common development, and I had a draft IPA from New South Brewing, another local craft brewery, with my meal. I thought it was splendid. I wish I had gone there instead.  

I'll end this post with a couple different perspective shots of the ferris wheel on the grounds. It wasn't in operation when I was there ... probably closed for the season.  

Next up: A look at Market Common, a relatively new mixed-use development on Myrtle Beach's southside.

Myrtle Beach's Broadway at the Beach packages fun, but really isn't on the beach

On two previous visits to Myrtle Beach, I hadn't come upon Broadway at the Beach a mile or so from the beach. Broadway at the Beach is a sprawling entertainment center packed around a modest man-made lake. There are chain restaurants (Hard Rock Cafe, Joe's Crab Shack, Paula Deen's Family Kitchen), ice-cream and refreshment kiosks, rides on the water, a 16-screen movie complex and amusements for kids of all ages. A family could be entertained there for a while day.

Lee Ann and I actually drove past the complex on our last visit. We had a finite destination, and while we noticed the attraction along the side of the road, I don't think either of us realized how large it was, or its novelty.

On Sunday, we made a one-day trip to Myrtle Beach. Again, we had a finite objective -- to drop off Lee Ann's daughter at a resort where she was to meet another family member. Because this was not planned to be a real getaway, I didn't bring along my DSLR camera, so all of the photos in this post were taken with my iPhone X. But as we prepared to leave and return home, we decided to hang around for lunch there. We'd heard TV Southern cooking celebrity Paula Deen had a restaurant there, and having enjoyed our three visits to her The Lady and Sons eatery in Savannah, we decided to seek it out.

Our Maps app led us to Broadway at the Beach (which is a misnomer; it's not on a beach), and sure
enough, there was Paula Deen's Family Kitchen and store. This Paula Deen's is monstrous (see lead-off photo) in comparison to the better known restaurant in Savannah. It has two floors; the shop is on the bottom level, and the eatery on the upper.

The Savannah restaurant's big attraction is a buffet spread; at the Myrtle Beach eatery, for the same $18.99 per person, diners eat family style -- they get a choice of two of the entrees (we chose fried chicken and meatloaf) and four sides (we chose coleslaw, mac 'n' cheese, green beans and poppyseed salad (a salad with poppyseed dressing). A photo showing the complete spread appears immediately above.

Servers bring you small portions of everything at the start, but gladly bring you more when you run out. I'll say that our server was extremely attentive -- and didn't make us wait long to refill our chicken, salad, beans and coleslaw portions. I was disappointed when our server told us their eatery's bar doesn't make the Savannah Lemonade cocktail that Deen's original establishment makes. But when I gave him the recipe from a picture I took of the Savannah eatery's recipe, he offered gamely to ask the bartender to replicate it. He brought the beverage you see at the right. It wasn't nearly as good (it was kind of weak) as the one I remember in Savannah. He brought me a shot of vodka to kick it up a notch!

I don't mean to spend too much time on food; there are other photos to present here. But I can't leave Paula's without sharing a picture at left, one of the products on display for purchase in the store portion of the complex.

I'm not even going to even try and explain it ... and no, I didn't bother to ask any of the store employees about it. (OK, feeling guilty, I just went online to see what I could learn, and "Hoecake" is described as a "cornbread made minimalist." So there.

After dining, we decided to check out a little of the rest of Broadway at the Beach; we did not make it around the entire lake.

The first photo below is something ... well, let's just leave it at that. It's something. No, I didn't go inside. But I did check out the store's website, and I found it humorous that the business didn't bother to offer an "about" tab to explain itself like most business web pages. However, it did describe the store as having "novelty products and apparel" and said that the Stupid Factory is "where boys are made!" No elaboration. So your guess as good as mine as to what that's supposed to mean. The store's Facebook page also offers no text to explain it under its "About" tab, but there are ample pictures of products there, and I guess you could say the photos speak a thousand words! If you visit the Facebook link I provided above, you'll see what I mean.

A full gallery of images from this shoot can be found at the link in this sentence.

Elsewhere on the boardwalk, you'll find the popcorn vendor above, with a closeup of the bagged popcorn appearing below.

Having been to Key West, my interest in the Key West Grill was piqued when I saw it (above). Below is a closeup of the statuesque figure in the right of the above photo ... composed to include a slice of more boardwalk storefronts on the right.

I also did not go into Rooster's (above), but I did get close to grab an illustration of the novel idea for plant planters (below). 

Hard Rock Cafe has a key location on the corner of one of the pedestrian intersections (above). After stepping back from my vantage point above, I can include the fountain you see below.

Above: Another kiosk.

Water plays an important role in Broadway at the Beach's aesthetics, as illustrated in the photos above and next six below. I'll provide context in the photos below where I deem it appropriate or necessary.

I don't know for sure, but I'm presuming the large objects floating on the water above are a ride or amusement of some kind. But I didn't anyone in them while I was there. Below, I managed to catch the wake of a motor boat that I'm presuming was taking customers on a ride up and down the lake.

Above: Fish in the lake apparently are accustomed to feedings from visitors standing on the bridge three photos above. I was in awe of how many of the fish gather -- and the visual of all those gaping fish mouths. 

Above and next five below: Shots of the pedestrian mall, including a variation of the fountain (first below) shown previously.