ONE SHOT AT BROOKGREEN
I am an idiot.
My mom was in town this weekend so I grabbed some tickets to the Summer Night Lights thing at Brookgreen Gardens - by all metrics and accounts the biggest and most beautiful garden on the east coast. They only light the place up for special occasions, and its always breathtaking when they do. Seems like it would be a decent idea to charge your camera battery beforehand.
Nahhhh not me though, I usually take the hard route in life. I pulled up after a 45 minute car ride, turned my camera on and saw that it was nearly dead - the ‘zero battery’ icon flashing in the top corner.
F**k. I only get one shot.
So I spent the next three hours enjoying the evening with my mom, taking in all the sights and sounds and shooting with my phone - all while in the back of my mind scouting for my one shot.
As the night went on the gardens lit up and gradually became cooler to look at and shoot as it got darker. A few spins through with different lighting felt like a whole new display.
By 9:30 I had made my decision. A shot of a solid gold statue at the end of Oak Alley, which was lit up in a awe-inspiring rotation of LED lights. The only problem was this was a super popular spot and I had to wait for it to clear out - and I had to memorize the color rotation to plan my shot with the lighting and colors I wanted for it. It took about 20 minutes of standing and patiently waiting - one drunk woman told me she thought I was one of the statues lol - for me to get a clear shot at it. Sure with photoshop and AI and all that I probably could have just taken the photo, wiped people out in post and chose my own color scheme but again - I like to go the hard route.
And in the end, I got my shot. Sure, there’s a couple volunteers sitting in the frame but what am I going to do? Tell them to move after they just spent 4+ hours VOLUNTEERING? Nope, lol they go in the shot. I appreciate them a great deal and told them that on the way out.
