The Dreaming State

On the edge of Charleston there are a bunch of historic houses in a line that have been painted different pastel colors, and because of this it is called “Rainbow Row”. The area is one of the most photographed spots in all of Charleston… but never quite like this.

This image is a form of Light Painting, all done in camera, using a tool called the Pixelstick by Bitbanger Labs… I created a simple BMP file of lines of color and loaded it into the PixelStick. Then I set my exposure for 30 seconds and walked thorough the scene with the device, creating a Rainbow sidewalk on Rainbow Row.

A photographer’s role goes far beyond simply making a correct exposure. We are visionaries. We are seers. Our mind’s eye can travel to multiple different locations in a second. We can see an image before we take it. We can feel the important ones.

This photograph was selected to be in the South Carolina Picture Project collection (linked HERE)… In the distance I saw a bunch of rocks around a puddle of water, and I had the vision of turning them into a giant seascape. Though the rocks were only about the size of my head, I knew a low perspective could make them look large. The lighthouse was far in the distance, but by closing down my aperture I kept it in focus, and by moving I placed it perfectly on the rocks… When I took this photograph I had that feeling, a strange feeling that you know you made something important.