South Carolina Confederate Memorial

*I corrected this to read Spotsy Courthouse. I originally identified it as the Wilderness*

A few weeks ago I was assigned to cover the installation of a new monument at the Spotsylvania Courthouse battlefield. The pictures were OK – guys with a crane, big slabs of marble – but they weren’t very interesting. Unless, I suppose, you are really into the Civil War War of Northern Aggression (full disclosure- I am a Yankee who had a relative from New York fight with the Irish Brigade and I have returned to lay claim to my portion of the plantation!).

All joking aside, I find the history of the war interesting and in fact photographed a great-great-grandson of U.S. Grant the other day. When you move here, it is tough not to be even marginally interested as the places you read about in history books – Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Manassas – are all here or at least very close by. I admit to not fully ‘getting’ the whole reenactor thing but far be it from me to judge another man’s hobby. Granted it includes camping out and firing cannon so it can’t be all bad!  But I digress…

The installation pictures were lackluster so I decided to return as the sun began to set so I could shoot a nice still life of the monument. Turns out the Park Service has nothing to do with the purchasing and installing of monuments; it is done by private groups. The Park provides guidelines towards what is appropriate and ensures the information on the monument is correct.

Anyway, the sun was getting a bit orange  but I wanted a little more dramatic picture so I set a flash off to the left to illuminate the flag as well as add a bit of dimension to the monument. I set another to the right with a warming gel on it to add to the sun’s effect. Finally I set the white balance on my camera to ‘shade’ as that has a warmer tone to it as well.  In the end, the flash to the right added very little to the image aside from a little fill on the bottom right corner. As soon as I get to the office, I’ll add another photo showing the set-up and what it looked like from another angle.  I must say that after spending an hour puttering around shooting a relatively easy picture was the most fun I had in a while. I guess it had to do with the problem-solving nature of the image and I didn’t have to deal with anybody who was self-concious in front of the camera. Plus it was one of the first really nice days and I was on a serene battlefield that at one time was the site of some of the most horrific fighting of the war. It even gave this Yankee reason to pause and reflect on why people continue to remember the war.