On second thought, here's a reflection on 10 years of Photo Potpourri ...

In my introductory note when starting the recent travel series on my November visit to Savannah, I said I wasn't going to do much to mark this blog's 10th anniversary this month.

I've had a change of heart, considering that in 2013, when I marked the fifth anniversary, I dedicated a post to telling viewers a little bit about the statistics that a blog owner gets to view to assess whether he/she gets the traffic they hope for ... and to gauge what types of posts are the most popular.

It occurred to me this past week that maybe I ought to do that again to mark the 10th anniversary, which arrived a few days ago on Dec. 11. And so here goes:

By Dec. 11 in  2013, I'd composed more than 400 posts here, fueled largely by the 105 total posts in 2012 alone. The years 2009 (88) and 2011 (82) weren't too shabby, either, if you're speaking purely in terms of volume.

From that point on it seems, I must have made a subconscious effort to shift from volume to better quality. (At least, I hope the quality has improved). That's because years 2014 through 2018 were not nearly as prolific as the first five. Today, my number of total posts from launch day until today numbers 644, and, curiously, my most prolific year these past five years has been 2018, with 80 total posts so far.

One thing that hasn't changed since 2013 (and probably since a year or two before that even) is the post fetching the most views, or "hits." It remains the same: a Nov. 19, 2009, profile I did of wedding photographer Rich Miller as part of Photo Potpourri's former  "Photographer in the Spotlight" series (a series, I might add, that proved popular to viewers ... but proved to be a lot of work for me). The image leading off the post and the one at the right are Miller's images, by the way.

The "Spotlight" write-up about Rich, a former longtime staff photographer for The Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star, had fetched more than twice as many hits than the No. 2 story at the five-year mark of this blog, and I can report that five years later ... not only is it still the all-time hits leader, but it also is still ahead of the No. 2 post by more than twice as many hits.

But in 2018, I have a new "No. 2" post. It's a tribute I did this past April for Garfield Shakespeare Co. co-founder and former artistic director Joe Cook, who passed away April 1. It amassed four-figure hits in a very short period and bumped to third place the previous No. 2, a Sept. 17, 2010, post I did about GSC's production of Macbeth presented in a U.S. colonial setting.

The rest of the current all-time Top 10 (in total visits over 10 years) as of this month are as follows:

4. A Nov. 7, 2010, post on then-Butler University freshman basketball player Chishawn Hopkins. That's Hopkins at right in his first game with Butler.

5. A Dec. 26, 2012, post on the unusually high number of oddly tilting trees in Indianapolis' Garfield Park.

6. An  Oct. 3, 2013, Indiana small-college football "Game Day" series post about the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

7. A Nov. 12, 2013, post on the colors of autumn leaves I came across near my Indy home. (See photo below)

8. A Feb. 22, 2009, post on French master photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

9. An Aug. 9, 2016, post on UIndy baseball player Brendan Dudas' Wiffle Ball league and how he and his girlfriend stepped in at a critical moment to care for Brendan's two young nephews.

10. An April 27, 2017, post profiling a swamp preserve at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens near Charleston, S.C.  (See photo above)

And now, some observations about what these statistics tell me.

I'm pleased that the post on Joe Cook (left) was able to reach so many people. Cook was a lifelong theater enthusiast -- he co-founded three community theater groups in the Indianapolis area, all of which are still in operation. Plus, he welcomed anyone and everyone to participate in his Garfield Shakespeare Co. productions. GSC availed its productions to anyone and everyone because the troupe does not charge an admission fee. The picture of him here was taken from The Tempest, a fall 2013 show hamstrung by cast defections, forcing Cook -- who started the production as the production's director -- to fill one of the cast openings (he played the kindly Neapolitan courtier Gonzalo).

Cook felt that theater should not be something people can't enjoy simply because of affordability. He enthusiastically accepted donations, however, because it does cost money to run a theater troupe, but he and Bradley Jones, Cook's husband and GSC's chief costume designer, would often dip into their own pockets to pay for things they needed.

In much the same vein, I'm pleased that Brendan Dudas (pictured at bat in the photo above) and his girlfriend got the attention for how they stepped in to help his nephews. He also sponsors an annual Wiffle Ball tournament to raise money for Diffuse Intrisic Pontine Glioma, a rare form of brain cancer that claimed the life of his 12-year-old niece Whitley.

Below are key images from the aforementioned posts on the titling trees in Garfield Park, the striking landscape at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and a scene from GSC's 2010 product of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Swamp preserve a photographer's delight

A few dozen acres of Magnolia Plantation and Gardens (MPG) near Charleston, S.C., is set aside for what attraction operators term the Audubon Swamp Garden. I consider it more of a swamp wildlife preserve; species you'll find here include alligators, herons, egrets and anhingas.

What you see in the lead-off photo is a beautiful, colorful anhinga perched on a small branch overlooking the big pond on the grounds. As I mentioned in yesterday's post (and in a previous post from Tybee Island), anhingas are a large waterfowl, found exclusively in warm climates. They must spread their wings to dry after every submersion in water because they do not have oil glands that most waterfowl possess to protect their feathers.

The cost to stroll through the swamp preserve is $8 -- this is in addition to the $15 general admission (for adults) to MPG. (See the website's admission information tab for all the attraction costs). When you do get in, you can stroll at leisure on paved or gravel paths. Aside from a few bridges and the wooden-railed walk into the grounds, those paths (and a wooden ramp in the pond for turtles, alligators et al to rest on)  -- are the only evidence of human encroachment in this area. Seeing all that I did in the swamp preserve pumped my creative juices. I came across several men and women with camera gear indulging their craft while I was there. Most had zoom lenses; at right, is an example of one such shutterbug. Another guy whose path I crossed carried a humongous lens with a camouflage veneer. I asked him the lens' focal length, and he said 600mm f/4. I know Canon and Nikon make lenses with those specs, but I don't know if you can get them in camouflage veneer.

As I showed in yesterday's post, I got a nice shot of an alligator along a creek shore when I was in a four-story observation tower elsewhere on the grounds before ever getting to the swamp preserve. But I saw considerably more alligators in the preserve.

As always, click on any picture to pull up a larger, sharper version, which is particularly important if you access the blog from a mobile device. To view a full gallery of my shots in the Audubon Swamp Garden at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: I shot everything you see here with a Canon 6D equipped with a Tamron 28-300 f/3.5-6.3 Di VZD VC lens, using a circular polarizing filter when outdoors until very late when it started to get dark, when I did without the polarizer. I bracketed all shots for three exposures, melding a good number of all three for each composition in post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. In some situations where using HDR software was impractical, I composed a shot with single frames.

I walked past the wooden ramp in the pond (it actually was more like a lake) on two occasions while in the preserve. The first time, I saw an Anhinga (above) on the ramp. The second time, an alligator was there (below).

Above: Elsewhere in the lake on the second pass by, I saw at least four alligators lurking not far from the shore like the one above.

Above: It was late, nearing dark, when I took a stab at photographing the above anhinga as it arrived at this nest. Because it was so dark, I didn't know it was an anhinga at the time; just that it was huge. In post-processing, I brought out the detail and color you see here by pushing the shadows sliders in Camera Raw and in PS Elements 15, when it became clear that it was an anhinga.

Above: An egret landed on a paved path just in front of me, and I stopped in my tracks to take a series of shots. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the bird was challenging my presence in its area of the preserve. I made the decision to resume my walk in its direction, and it shuffled off to the right side. Not long afterward, I got the shot below of the egret.  

Above: My favorite mixed-light shot from the swamp garden.

Above and below: A couple of prairie-type shots.

Above and below: A couple of perspective shots of the pond/lake early on in the visit, before it came close to getting dark.   

 Above: An egret nearing the end of its landing in a tree branch. 

 Above: The wooden walk and wood-railed entry into the swamp preserve. 

Above and below: Evidence of other human life visiting the grounds while we were there.

Above: That's the sun in the pond (and yes, this was more like a pond) a good two hours before sundown.

Above: I shot this boat in a swamp from several angles, and in post-processing, I experimented with different crops. This is one of the originals.

Above and below: Two more full reflection shots, the one above featuring a tree packed with resting (and perhaps nesting) egrets. I think I like the one below better. 

Above: Another sun-on-pond reflection composition. I promise it will be the last in this post. 

Above: I conclude with a shot that grabbed me for its simple elegance, a bit of neo-impressionism in a Claude Monet kind of way.

Next up: North Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Previous posts in this series:

Part I: Savannah's Forsyth Square

Part II: Savannah's old-city neighborhoods 

Part III: Savannah's Riverwalk

Part IV: Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery

Part V: Tybee Island, Ga.

Part VI: Revisiting Charleston, SC, and its charms

Part VII: Nature's splendor can be found at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston

Nature's splendor can be found at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens

Fort Sumter is near the top of tourist attractions at Charleston, S.C., but not far behind are the many plantations and mansions open to the public (with admission fees, of course). Among those are Boone Hill, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, Middleton Place and Drayton Hall.

Last year, Lee Ann and I visited the fort and one of the plantations -- Boone Hill, which is near Mount Pleasant on the other side (east) of the Cooper River from Charleston. This year's visit was shorter, and we had time to stop at only one, and we choose Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, which is on the Ashley River side (west) of the city.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens (MPG) is an expansive property rich in history (which you can catch up by visiting the above link) and the only gardens in South Carolina to make the list of America's Most Beautiful Gardens. Indeed, the property is so carefully landscaped that it promises to have flowers in bloom year-round. When we were there in early March, azaleas were in full bloom, and the color was spectacular everywhere you turned. And the gardens have at least four modest pedestrian bridges over narrow spans of water. With the talk oak trees nearby, they reminded me of Claude Monet's paintings of the Japanese bridge over his lily pond.  An example is illustrated in the photo I chose to lead off the post.

But MPG is more than just flower gardens. There is a manor (which requires a separate fee to visit), a zoo and nature center and, last but certainly not least, something the operators refer to as "the swamp garden," an amazing area of wilderness for birds and alligators. I would call it a minimally controlled nature preserve.

Access to the swamp preserve (sorry, I can't bring myself to calling it a garden) also requires an extra fee, but Lee Ann decided we should check it out, and am glad we did. (I will devote a separate post to the swamp portion of my photos at MPG.) I spent the final portion of my visit at the swamp, and I came across several people with cameras and tripods who obviously came for the opportunity to photograph wildlife. In fact, one of the photographer had a baby stroller nearby, and I was intrigued that he felt brave enough to bring a child that young along while he indulged his photographer. But when I walked by him and could see in the stroller, he had no baby along for the ride. He was using the stroller to wheel around his camera bag and other gear, which I'd never seen before. I was impressed, and I told the guy so. The wildlife I was able to identify while there included alligators, egrets, ducks and anhingas; the latter is something I mentioned in my previous post about Tybee Island.

Fortunately for us, we arrived at MPG early enough (around 10:30) a.m. to take in most of what we hoped to see. By the time we got through the swamp area, we were pretty tired ... and the sun was beginning to set.

As always, click on any picture to pull up a larger, sharper version, which is particularly important if you access the blog from a mobile device. To view a full gallery of my shots at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: I shot everything you see here with a Canon 6D equipped with a Tamron 28-300 f/3.5-6.3 Di VZD VC lens using a polarizing filter when outdoors (I did without the filter near sunset, while sunlight became sparse). I bracketed all shots for three exposures, melding a good number of all three for each composition in post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. In some situations where using HDR software was impractical, I processed shots using single frames.

Another of the pedestrian bridges (above) found on the grounds, and with luck (i.e., no pebble throwing), you can compose neat reflections in your images. The shot below was taken from the red bridge.

Above and below are vertical and horizontal compositions taken from roughly the same point on the grounds. The photo below lets you see the manor in the background. Someone in a photo club I used to visit regularly once told me that he felt that the best reflections shots should never show the full source of a reflection. I didn't agree with him then, and I don't agree with him now. That's not to say a photo showing just a reflection is not stunning; quite the contrary. They most certainly can be stunning, and I've composed some such shots in my days. But I feel that the two shots above are of equal value because you can see the reflection source. 

Above: A tip of the hat to Lee Ann, who first spotted this reflection composition and captured it with her iPhone. I liked it so much, I grabbed it with my Canon 6D, too. 

Above: An example of "the pretty," which Lee Ann often uses to describes things strikingly beautiful.

Above is one of my several attempts at MPG to look at things differently. I was directly below an expansive oak tree branch adorned with Spanish moss, and I got the idea to lie on my back and look up directly into the sky. When I did, this is what I saw. The original color shot is on the right; in post-processing, I went to see what a monochrome version would look like, I liked it, and I present it on the left.

Above: The entrance to MPG was lined on both sides with oaks, quite reminiscent of the entry to Boone Hall Plantation that we enjoyed last year. 

Above: A gratuitous "cute puppy" shot that I got just inside the gate where admission tickets are purchased. These two were in a modest garden just behind the ticket-takers' station.

The photo above was my first introduction to the anhinga, a large waterfowl that must air out its wings (as this anhinga is doing) after every water submersion because unlike most fowl, the anhinga does not possess oil glands to protect its feathers. This bird was in an area I would describe as a transition point between the manor and main gardens and the swamp preserve. The "transition area" is where you can also find (among other things) the large observation tower shown in the photo below. 

Above: From atop the observation tower, I spotted this gator resting near the shore of a modest creek near an open field not far from the tower. I was on the top floor of the tower, so I'm sure I had my 28-300mm lens set at maximum focal range.  

Above: A close shot of a flower that caught my eye along one of the many trails in the gardens and transition area.

Above: Examples of another opportunity I decided to explore different perspectives of a shot. The one on the left showing these very tall reeds is how people see these as they walk the trail. A few of the reeds bowed significantly, so I got on my back again and grabbed the shot on the right. 

Above: Most shots of the manor I've seen are direct frontal shots. Here's a view of the manor from the side. 

If you step far enough away from the manor and stroll along one of the paved accesses to the side of it, you can better appreciate the arching-branch oaks such as the one above (not to mention another of the blooming azalea bushes). 

Above: Behind the manor, from the stops leading to the back door, you see this magnificent oak and Spanish moss dwarf (not to mention frame) visitors on the trail.

Above: Like most zoo shots, the subject animals are generally confined to a small area, so getting good photographs is simply a matter of whether the animal is up and about or willing to get animated to make your time shooting or waiting worthwhile. Many of the creatures in the MPG zoo were likewise confined (it's kind of sad, in a way). The only photo of those I took that I'll present in this post is this one. The peacock was free to roam, so the challenge became whether one could see/photograph it showing its colorful plume. I got mine.


Next up: The swamp preserve at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens


Previous posts in this series:

Part I: Savannah's Forsyth Square

Part II: Savannah's old-city neighborhoods 

Part III: Savannah's Riverwalk

Part IV: Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery

Part V: Tybee Island, Ga.

Part VI: Revisiting Charleston, SC, and its charms