A pictorial toast to street performers

There's a funny story (OK, perhaps only slightly funny) to the genesis of today's post. I'll try to make it brief. 

While working at my online site at SmugMug.com, I was organizing a gallery involving street performers I'd photographed in the past. It had not occurred to me until doing this work on the gallery that I photographed a flute player in Savannah twice -- and four years apart. And each time, he was performing on the riverwalk along River Street. 

The first time was on Feb. 1, 2018 (see photo leading off the post). He was wearing a red, black, gray and white checkered long-sleeve shirt, light blue jeans and a small fedora with a feather on top. I'm sure I came across him while doing a walk-around the riverwalk area that day.

The next time was on March 30, 2022 (see photo above), and I spied him not far from where the Savannah River cruise ship, The Georgia Queen, was docking after Lee Ann and I had been on a leisurely trip along the river close to where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. We were still on the cruiser when I took this photo. This time, the musician was wearing a white shirt, gray pants and a ship captain's hat. 

Interestingly, each time I photographed him, I happened to catch him looking my way at least once in my pictures. (see first two photos below). Nevertheless, it did not occur to me in 2022 that I had seen this guy on the 2018 visit. That lightning bolt struck Tuesday of this week as I was organizing the aforementioned street performers photo gallery, a link to which you'll find in this sentence. 

I figured that while relating this story, I'd go ahead an offer some more photos from the street performances gallery here. So below are some other shots. Most, I might add, were taken in Savannah, where there are quite a few such performers at various spots along the riverwalk. 

The fellow above and below I remember only by his first name, Mike, even though he told me his full name at the time I took these photos in October 2011. I even did a post about him ... in 2013, two years after the fact! I encountered him while doing a photo shoot along Mass Ave in Indianapolis. As the 2013 post mentions, Mike told me at the time he was leaving for Europe the next day. I've always wondered what became of him ... 

   

We're back in Savannah for the next few performers. I did not catch any of their names, unfortunately. But the guys in the photo above, below and second and third photos below all were stationed at some point along the riverwalk. I came upon the guy above on March 7, 2017, which coincided with my first-ever visit to Savannah. The next two performers, very animated in their a cappella delivery, were photographed Feb. 1, 2018, the same day I first photographed the flute player in the lead-off photo. 

The horn player above and below I came across in Savannah's Forsyth Square, the largest (by far) of the city’s almost two dozen neighborhood one-block parks, or squares. The photo date was Dec. 14, 2017. On that same date, in one of the smaller neighborhood squares, I came across a saxophone player dressed as Santa entertaining a young boy and his mother (second and third photos below). 

Above: This performer I came across in Savannah on the far western end of the riverwalk on April 1, 2022. 

Above and below: We briefly leave music in order to transition to painting with this guy, who is bundled up on a cold autumn day, Nov. 16, 2018, to be exact. He was demonstrating his craft in one of one-block neighborhood squares in Savannah. The bottom photo is a cropped version of the one above.

Above and below: Still in Savannah for these shots, again in Forsyth Square, but on March 29, 2022. 

Above and below: The last performer in this post was another sax player, this time on the pier at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C. I came across him on March 10, 2017. We stopped in Charleston after leaving Savannah that month before returning to North Carolina.  

Return to Savannah, Part VI: A fortuitous encounter at Forsyth Square

As I alluded to in the first post of this series, I had a fortuitous encounter in Forsyth on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, our second full day in Savannah. It was a day we spent the morning walking around the historic district again (which we always make a point to do while in Savannah) and, in the afternoon, taking the hour and a half trolley tour of the district. 

During the morning walking portion of our day, we approached Forsyth Square from the east, the side flanked by Drayton Street. I spied a couple of gentlemen sitting on a park bench in the middle of the park's south section, a scenario that reminded me of something that had happened on our very first visit to Savannah in March 2017. 

If you're a regular follower of this blog, you might remember the story and picture of the two nattily dressed gentlemen I made in 2017 and included in one of my posts here about that trip. 

At that time, I had asked the gentlemen if they would mind me photographing them, and both cheerfully consented. They told me their names, but I didn't write them down. By the time I got home to Indianapolis and began to compose the blog post, while I had remembered the full name of one gentleman (John Harrington), I could remember only the first name of the other one (James). The photo leading off the post is a cropped version that ran with the original post in 2017; below is the uncropped original, which I don't think I included in the 2017 post. 

When I saw those gentlemen on the bench from afar on the recent visit, I decided to cross the grassy meadow of Forsyth Square to investigate if maybe those were the same two gentlemen I had photographed in 2017. If so, I was hoping to get the other guy's last name and possibly do an updated photo.

Alas, as I got close to the men, I could see that it was not them. I turned and walked north toward the central fountain. In short order,  I came upon a single man on another bench, and I came up with the idea to ask him if he were a regular visitor to the park (he said yes). And then asked him if would mind telling me if he knew or recognized John and/or James if I showed him their photo on my iPhone. 

He looked at the photo for a good 10 seconds before he flashed a smile and said, while still fixing his attention on the photograph, that yes, he has seen them in the park before. He said they help staff a very modest Jehovah Witness booth that sets up daily in the park near the central fountain. 

I thanked him and headed north toward the fountain. Before I got to it though, there was a small booth along the sidewalk on the right that clearly was religious in nature. So I strolled over to it and gambled that it was likely staffed by members of Jehovah Witness that the man on the bench who I had just talked to mentioned moments earlier. But the booth was staffed by two women -- no men. So I repeated with the women what I had done with the man moments earlier -- showed her the picture and asked if they recognized John and James. 

The first lady I showed the picture to immediately and cheerfully said yes. She confirmed that one was John Harrington and told me James' surname was Washington. She also confirmed that the two men help out with the church's mission to spread the word at the park booths, but they do so primarily in the afternoon. 

I told her about the chance encounter I had with John and James six years earlier in the same park, and the woman agreed to let me send her a copy of the photo by text so she could show it to John and James the next time she came across them. I gave her my name, too, in case either of the gentlemen cared to know that information. There was a small part of me that wished John or James might drop me a text at some point since that May 16 encounter, but that has not happened.  

When I first came upon John and James in 2017, they were simply sitting on a park bench that was considerably south of the park's central fountain. There was no church-related booth setup nearby. Because of my curious nature, I would have liked to have asked them this time around if they always had been members of Jehovah Witness and participated in church promotions in the park ... or whether that activity came about in the years after I was there in 2017. I will add that in the few weeks since learning about their work with Jehovah's Witness, when I've gone back to look at the photo I took in 2017, I've wondered if the pamphlet James Washington is holding might be a church flier.  

I guess I'll never know. And I didn't get a chance to go back to the square while we were there to see if John and James would welcome an updated portrait. 

End of Series

Previously in this series:

Part I: Revisiting Savannah's historic district

Part II: The Crab Shack, Tybee Island

Part III: Dolphin-spotting, seabirds, lighthouses and more off Tybee Island

Part IV: Eateries, galleries and boutiques

Part V: Tiffani Taylor paintings find homes in historic district

Return to Savannah, Part III: More of the Historic District

For me, one of the draws to Savannah is strolling through the 23 neighborhood squares, or parks, carefully laid out in the 18th century by the city's founder, James Edward Oglethorpe. Most of the parks are adorned with stately oak trees, as the one shown above.

These parks, or squares, were designed by James Edward Oglethorpe when he founded Savannah in the 1730s, and I've presented images of them in blog posts after previous visits. They are in the city's Historic District. But I never seem to get enough of them; as an admirer of the elegant oak tree, I'm always in awe of their artsy branches and formations. 

In Chippewa Square, for example, the square almost in the center of the neighborhood parks grid, there is a statue of Oglethorpe (two photos below). On the first full day we spend in Savannah on the recent trip, we enjoyed a city-wide trolley tour -- something we also did on our visit in March 2017. It had been so long since we did the trolley tour, we found that we did not mind any of the repetition but, in fact, learned (or maybe remembered?) more this time around. 

One of the things we learned more about during the trolley tour was that Oglethorpe, after a brief military career in which he attained the rank of  general, served in the British House of Commons for 21 years. While in the House, he obtained a reputation for a champion of the oppressed, including those imprisoned under brutal conditions. 

In June 1732 he petitioned to obtain a charter to establish a colony in the New World. The petition was granted, and he founded Savannah as a charity colony in February 1733. The original founding charter banned slavery and allowed religious freedom, which inspired the establishment of a Jewish community in the city. 

Because of Savannah and Georgia's proximity to Florida, which was occupied by Spanish colonists, Oglethorpe made a point to make quick and lasting friends with the Native Americans he encountered after arriving in Georgia. He negotiated with Tomochichi, the leader of the Yamacraw tribe for land to build his settlement, and Tomochichi became a fast and lasting ally. 

There had been talk in the recent past (and perhaps there still is) about removing a confederate monument and bust of Confederal Col. Francis Bartow from Forsyth Park, the largest of the squares (it's actually a long rectangle). But they were still standing, at their usual prominent place at the south end of the park, when we visited there in March, as shown above. 

Below, are various scenes we came across on our afternoon of walking through the sundry neighborhood squares, beginning with the gentleman strumming the guitar.  

I made a lot of compositions using tree branches or their vegetation as either frames or secondary elements in some photos. The one above is just outside Johnston Square, while the one below shows a tree branch and leaves dangling above a stained-glass window on the backside of Trinity Episcopal Church. 

Above: A carriage ride vendor and his passengers turn a corner around a square (which is off to the left) with another long oak branch helping to frame the top of the photo. 

An outdoor cushioned bench (above) on the sidewalk in front of the DeSoto Hotel on East Liberty Street, and outdoor seating for the Treylor Park Hitch (below), an eatery across Drayton Street from the DeSoto.

 

Above: Just a cool brick corner structure with elegant ironwork framing. 

Above: The main entrance to the Georgia Historical Society building at Whitaker and Gaston streets at the northwest corner of Forsyth Square. 

Above and below: Views from different angles of the Independent Presbyterian Church at Bull Street and Oglethrope Avenue, again integrating tree branch and foliage into the image.

 

Above: Our tour guide on the trolley ride told us that this Candler Oak, on property owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design at 516 Drayton Street across from Forsyth Park, dates to the 1700s and is one of the oldest living landmarks in all of Georgia. It is 54 fee tall and has a circumference of 17 feet and a diameter of 63 inches. It is not the oldest tree in the state, however. That distinction goes to a red oak along Mann Road in Palmetto, Ga., which has a diameter of 10 feet and is estimated to be 350 to 450 years old, which means it dates back to the 1600s. 

Above: A house that caught my attention for its architecture, ironwork and the oak branches and leaves intersecting with its street appeal. 

Above and below: Two closeups of main door or gate ornamentations we came across on our walks in the Historic District. The one above shows some wear on the nose and forehead area. 

Above: The Harper-Fowler House, another instance where I used trees to help me frame a composition. 

Above and first two below: Broughton Street is the main commercial thoroughfare of downtown Savannah. Portions of the street were being torn up and rebuilt while we were there, but here are views of two sections that were not part of that work. 

Above and below: The section of Broughton Street that was being thoroughly rebuilt. 

Next up: Small art shops and galleries

PREVIOUSLY IN THE SERIES: 

Part I: Colonial Park Cemetery

Part II: A cruise on the Georgia Queen

Revisiting Savannah, Part VI: Everything else ...

I covered a lot of things in photographs in my previous visits to Savannah. On visit No. 4, could I possibly find anything I missed before?

A good photographer always answers, "Of course." And of course, I found more things to photograph. And, okay, I found some of the same things to photograph.

Leading off the post is what I've been calling "a section shot" of a larger form. It's the top half of "Bird Girl," the now-famous sculpture by Sylvia Shaw Judson that appears on the cover of the 1994 best-selling book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which a few years later Clint Eastwood made into a motion picture, starring Kevin Spacey.

When the local photographer was assigned to find cover art for the book, "Bird Girl" was located in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery. Once the book and film became a hit, the cemetery traffic to check out the statue became so heavy that the statue was moved first to the local Telfair Academy museum and later to the Jepson Center for the Fine Arts, where I found it for this image.

Jepson also had the fascinating artwork pictured immediately below. It resembles an anchor, but I didn't have time to explore the title or its background.

As always, if you want to pull up a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on it. This is particularly helpful if you access the site using a mobile device. Galleries from my recent visit to Savannah can be found by following the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: All of the photos you see in this post were taken with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens. I bracketed each composition for three exposures, melding them into one in post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software.

When we arrived in Savannah on Nov. 12, the city still had its Veterans Day decorations up, as shown above. The flags spanned Broughton Street, the main commercial thoroughfare in the historic district and downtown. On the last two days we were there, the city was replacing those with Christmas decorations, as shown in the first two photos below. 

While downtown, I found this courier's bicycle (above) outside the Goose Feathers, an express cafe at 39 Barnard St. We'd had breakfast there on a previous visit, and we decided to do so again this time. We enjoyed our meals again, as we had on the first visit. Elsewhere downtown, while passing The Paris Market from the other side of Broughton Street, I noticed the situation seen in the photo below ... where the employee changing the window display ... became a kind of display herself, prompting passersby to do a double-take.  

Above: I chuckled with I saw the word "Garfunkel" in this sign. I just wish I'd have been able to juxtapose it with something showing the name "Simon" on it.

A street artist in creative mode in one of the neighborhood squares (above) and a fruit dangling from a tree (below) near the Green-Meldrim House (second below) across from Madison Square. The third photo below shows the covered walkway between the Green-Meldrim House and the adjacent St. John's Episcopal Church. We toured the Green-Meldrim House -- notable because it was where Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman stayed briefly after his Union Army entered Savannah during the Civil War. Interior pictures weren't allowed in the house, so ... there are none to present here. 

Above and first two photos below: The Kehoe House, 123 Habersham St., is now a premier bed and breakfast, is named for its first occupant. William Kehoe, an immigrant from Ireland, and his wife and 10 children moved into the home near Columbia Square in 1892. It stayed in the family until his last heir sold it in 1930. It had various functions and owners in the years afterward (one of the owners in that period was former NFL star Joe Namath) until it was finally converted into the bed and breakfast it is today in 1992. 

I always photograph the iconic fountain (above) in Savannah's premier neighborhood square, Forsyth Square, when I visit the city. I may not get a new view, but it's always pretty. Below is the Confederate Monument in the same square, situated in the middle of the large park's southern second. The woman shown in the second photo below was working on what appeared to be a pencil drawing.   

A gnome (above) and a stuff doll of some kind (below) found on adjacent plastic chairs inside a fence bordering a home somewhere in the historic district. 
  

City Hall (above) as seen from Johnson Square and a framing of Lutheran Church of the Ascension (below) that I liked. 

In the open City Market plaza just west of Ellis Square, we came across this dog making nice with strangers (above) that it walked over to get some attention. On its way back to its owner, it stopped to pose for me (below). Elsewhere in the plaza, a man seemed to be trying to calm a small child as they sat on steps outside a City Market eatery. 

This ends the Savannah series.

Previously in the series:

Part I: First visit to Six Pence Pub

Part II: Congregation Mickve Israel

Part III: Historic Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters

Part IV: Classic French impressionists on display at Jepson Center 

Part V: Southern charm of downtown shops