Charleston, South Carolina – 2 – In Black and White

In 2012, I posted a New Orleans piece with only monochrome pictures. The French Quarter, with its preserved, old-time feel, lends itself to images that suggest they were taken long ago. Charleston is another city with many antique perspectives and it’s easy to remove the color from an image and imagine it was taken in antebellum times.

Big House & Live Oak, Charleston (9 March 2014)

Some pictures just beg to be monochrome. The stark interior of St. Michaels’ Episcopal Church was practically colorless when I saw it. The barest design elements in this Anglican vestibule make an image that is all about light, shadow and line.

Colonial Episcopal Vestibule, Charleston (10 March 2014) 

Of course, St. Michael’s has an old graveyard and naturally, I was curious as to who I’d find buried there. John Rutledge, the second Chief Justice of the United States, was the most illustrious discovery. He was the first Governor of the State of South Carolina and served on the Supreme Court in 1795.

Grand Homes on the Battery (9 March 2014)

Many of the city’s grandest antebellum homes are on the Battery and look out over the harbor and the mouth of the Cooper River. You can see Fort Sumter from here and I wonder how the upper crust felt watching from their verandas as the fort was bombarded. While some were fearful of the coming war, others were excited by the pyrotechnics and the prospects of a short and victorious campaign of Confederate independence.

The architecture inspired me to make this a sepia tone image. It helped seal the mood to crop away the lower portion of the picture that showed the modern cars parked on the street.

Circular Congregational Church, Charleston (9 March 2014)

The Circular Church has an interesting floor plan with rows of pews radiating away from the altar space. We enjoyed a choir recital one evening but you know me…I was drawn to the oldest English burial ground in the city. The church graveyard claims the finest collection of colonial slate gravestones outside of New England.

Confederate Memorial, Charleston Battery (11 March 2014)

Practically every town and village in the Deep South has a memorial to the conflict. While I am surprised at the groundswell of sentiment to finally make the racist Stars and Bars flag disappear, I do not agree that we should also do away with the monuments and memorials. There are many and most commemorate gallantry, honor and sacrifice. Yes, they were defending an evil cause but that is our nation’s history. If I find abhorrent the political right’s proclivities to re-write and sugar-coat (or worse, ignore) our flawed past, I have to oppose the left’s overreach to whitewash and purify this part of our history. Time will heal these wounds…eventually…I hope.