Our recent trip to the South-East United States had a number of objectives. The obvious ones were to see specific sites, and for me, the goal of visiting those sits was to get a photograph. A more intangible objective related to my transition into retirement; a physical break to delineate the change.
We had just two fixed dates: January 21st (New Orleans); February 17th (Atlanta). I booked just one hotel in advance in New Orleans as I wanted to stay in the French Quarter and Mardi Gras was approaching. For the remainder of the tour we booked either the evening before or the morning of the stay.
The initial plan was defined by a list of candidate sites (the red pins in the map); the actual route was determined daily on whim and interest. The candidate site reflecting the interest for that day was the objective. If we enjoyed it and there was more to see we stayed another day. Otherwise, we moved on.
The route shown on the map reflects actual, as there was no plan. We decided not to go down into Southern Florida as we had committed to being in Atlanta on February 17th and we didn’t want to cut short the tour along the East coast.
The sites we initially listed offered landscape and wildlife settings. These are areas where we can walk or in many cases, ride our bicycles. Many of them were National or State Parks. The final selection was refined based on reviews, including those from the Photograph America Newsletter. The latter was particularly insightful as it offers a photographer’s point of view, including information relevant to one.
I was looking broadly for three landscapes: beaches, marshes (grasslands) and swamps. Birds dominated the wildlife objective. The guides at most places we visited wanted to show us alligators, but at this time of year most are hibernating in the mud and not visible. Alligators were not a photography objective, although they were a menu objective.
Stylistically I wanted to move beyond reportage to a more conceptual or impressionistic one. This is harder to do, but in that is offered the challenge. It also presents a challenge which is not immediately accessible, so now I have something to keep me going.
This is the first extensive driving trip we have taken. It worked out well. It offers a lot of flexibility in route choices and luggage. In recent years I have found that air travel is a burden not a delight. Our trip covered 9,299km and 13 states (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York) over 38 days.
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