Where to start? I love barbecue. I love butcher shops. I love cities with tall buildings and I love board games. I also love air conditioning. If you don’t know the Mid Atlantic already sucks during the summer time, the South is way dumber without this modern luxury. AC required and humidity needs to go away. Period.
Anyway…
First off, I stayed with my family who recently moved to South Carolina from Alabama. I will definitely miss Alabama but I did enjoy me some great eating South Carolina on the border of North Carolina but inside their house with smoked Pacific Cod, Pork Chops and Ribeye Steaks. If this isn’t a great vacation, let me know what is.
My first photography adventure took me to a little town called Waxhaw, North Carolina. Within that town is a bridge, some sidewalks and some trains. I had a fantastic Cuban-like sandwich with chips at a little spot called Cork and Ale. Though not authentic, it was an awesome sandwich. I love me some good sandwiches. If you don’t like sandwiches, you’re pretty much a loser, baby.
CSX locomotive rolling through the town of Wexhaw, North Carolina at approximately 50MPH empty freight with a mid-Engine for braking capabilities and extra horsepower when needed - Total train length was roughly 1.5 miles long empty weight of 14,000,000 pounds (max weight loaded was probably around 35 million pounds) with another Canadian train holding for CSX engineers to move through. Lunch took priority over waiting to see our neighbors to the North roll through.
After our sammiches we met an elderly man who used to run the ol’ Amtrak lines and he pointed out we had to stay on the bridge to watch this CSX dude run by with his 14,000,000 pounds of empty weight come on through at over 50 miles per hour. He said with coal and other cargo included that train was well over 35,000,000, yes that is MILLIONS of pounds at over 1.5 miles long.
As days went by I finally got myself into Charlotte, North Carolina. Now, Charlotte is weird. Instead of “downtown,” “uptown” is where the mid-high rises are. So we hit up a spot called NoDa first. It’s a very cool entertainment, artsy and unique place to hang out. The photography opportunities are amazing as well.
From there, it was Uptown Charlotte. Here is where I got the Nikon D810 IR converted camera out and FINALLY got to explore using it to photograph architecture and experimenting in Light Room with colors and shades.
Downstairs are the images I decided to bring to life from my Fuji GFX 50SII and Infrared converted Nikon D810. This, as always, was an amazing opportunity to visit family and just kick off the shoes and relax for a week. Despite the 8-9 hour drive down and back, this was a fun trip and I would not exchange it for anything. God bless, and good night!
- Mike
PS: New images added to Arch/Design, City Life and Transportation portfolio sections…Browse away friends…
