My Business Was Carded...
So 20 years ago I was living in Tallahassee and formed a business to create photo business cards.
Unique. One of a kind.
I showed people they could have their face, their store, their product on a VERY personal card.
Oh, a few people had tacky cards printed on flimsy Kodak photo paper.
But, mine were real cards, printed on a 6-color high speed press in Toronto, Canada. You could even write notes on the back.
Find a need, fill it better than anyone else for a fair price and you'll succeed.
When I came back to Charleston I still would keep my eye out for a suitable business for my cards.
Say you were on Folly Beach about 12 years ago and you owned a bar/restaurant that overlooked the ocean
Now, THAT's the picture you should have on your card!
Of course, a few years later, the view was completely blocked by a 4-story Condo but you see my point.
A pretty scene. A pretty card.
Sometime you just wanted your face on the card. Or be pictured in front of the sign on the front of your place.
It was fun giving out MY card for
Boyd Multi-Media
Keep in mind that picture of me WAS taken 20 years ago. The phone number is accurate though after all these years.
Well, the area code was updated when we changed from
803.
Actually, I did meet a guy when I was still in Florida who had a unique card.
His you could even call MORE unique because it was printed on a thin, thin piece of wood.
And it's one of the few I've kept.
Wonder how many trees died for his cards?
Now, you can go online to design and order your cards to hand out. The price is a LOT less than I used to charge so I guess I'm no longer in that business.
I get mine online and was able to be fairly creative.
My Smartphone also now can display my
QR (Quick Response) code.
Other Smartphones can scan it and bring up and store my web site.
Good thing too because I just changed to
Gmail so I have to order a batch of new cards now that I'm no longer on Comcast.net.
(As usual, click on the photos for more details.)Thanks for stopping by to read my blog. Leave your card.
Labels: Area code 803 to 843, Condos, Folly Beach, Pelican Ocean Bar, photo business cards, QR code, wooden card
I Call It "The Sand Bar."
This weekend I took a visiting cousin out to Folly Beach.
That's kinda mean because she lives in Chicago. The azaleas there have not bloomed yet.
In fact, they had an
April snow a few days ago.
She was still in "sun shock" when we arrived on Folly and I suggested we check out the newly-remodeled Holiday Inn.
This is a view from the new
Blu Restaurant and Bar.
Finally, someone had opened up the whole front of the place and let the beach be the spectacular sight it always should have been.
Walls were knocked out, small windows and sliding glass doors have been replaced with wall-to-wall vistas.
I think even the beach looks bigger.
This is NOT your
typical Holiday Inn,
(Click on photos for fantastic details>)
Labels: April Snow, Chicago, Folly Beach, Holiday Inn, sand bar
Get On The Bus !
The story in the paper said
CARTA was starting a 3x day weekend bus to Folly Beach.
Well, it's about time!
The last time I rode that bus from Ansonborough was about 1952.
I spent a lot of summers at Folly with my grandmother.
In fact, my birth certificate says I was BORN at Folly Beach.
Technically, I was born at the old St. Francis on Calhoun Street but the certificate stated where my parents were living.
I wasn't old enough to drive so my Mom would put me on the city's beach bus in front of our house on Society Street and tell the driver my grandmother would meet me on Center Street by the (old) post office.
It was a 12 mile drive and what I remember most are the furrowed tomato fields that covered MOST of James Island way back then. Mile after mile, the optical illusion effect made the dark lines waver and undulate as we rolled past.
My extensive photo files had not captured these memories so I searched the internet and found these illustrations.
My Mom is sure the drivers recall me.
She said I was not shy and I was quite a
Chatty Chuck those days. She has no doubt I talked his ear off.
Anybody else remember riding that route or the fields?
Labels: bus driver, CARTA, Folly Beach, furrows, optical illusion, tomato fields
Baby Boomers and The Internet....
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Someone I just met said "
you look familiar. Are you somebody famous?"Since I knew I was a legend (in my own mind) I modestly brushed aside the idea that anyone else would think so. We soon discovered she had seen the article in the
Humana national magazine that went to its 800,000 members.
The Summer issue had outlined various ways seniors are using the internet and the section that described my blogging experience included a picture of me at my computer.
I had blogged here before how I was interviewed by phone by a writer in New York and was visited by a local photographer the editors hired to show me "in action" at the keyboard. It was fun being on the other side of the camera for a change.
A cousin I had not seen in 50 years also had contacted me after seeing the article and now we e-mail back and forth. She plans a trip to Charleston the end of the year.
To see Folly Beach again.
(Click on article to enlarge)
Labels: Folly Beach, Humana, internet
USMC : Photography = College Scholarship
Being a Marine Corps photog paid off big time! Toting around a camera during my military "career" for 4 years enabled me to be the first in the family to attend college.
In 1959 I had flown to MCRD in San Diego for a week with the Camp Lejeune, N.C. Marine varsity football team. I traveled as the team photographer, NOT as a player! The late 1950s were peaceful and many very good college athletes had enlisted as reservists meaning there were lots of young, talented players in the various services then. And rivalries developed.
As my East Coast team prepared to play against the Marine Corps Recruit Depot varsity team, they had to practice each day but I was free to roam around this pretty, laid-back southern California town that was similar to my seaside Charleston.
Eventually I looked up a priest who had taught me in high school and now was a History Professor at the young (11-year old) Catholic university. He introduced me to some of the senior faculty and he suggested that since they had no photographer maybe I would be a good candidate. I was experienced, had my own equipment, was now very interested in starting college and was about to end my enlistment in the Corps.
I accepted an offer of a photography scholarship to the University of San Diego and, as soon as I was discharged in 1960, I packed up my cameras and darkroom equipment and flew west. The sun-bleached blonde young man who met my plane and drove me up to the campus in his vintage "woody" asked if I were a surfer. I said I had body surfed at Folly Beach in South Carolina. He smirked.
So now I was a former Marine and a freshman in college, slightly older than my peers.
I started this photography blog two months ago and several people commented on the picture I posted of John F. Kennedy. Like me, they appreciated the crisp combination of the large, excited crowd and the speaker with his familiar face turned toward me. This was Senator Kennedy in the 1960 campaign and he had drawn a huge audience downtown in this supposedly Republican city.
With a few pals from the University, I pushed my way toward the platform and showing my USD student ID card, said I was the school's photographer and could I come up on the platform. Times were REALLY more simple then and I was given a quick ok by the policeman and I found myself in a great photo location.
A few years later, several months before he was shot in Dallas, I was a staff photographer with the daily newspaper and photographed President Kennedy again in San Diego. It took two weeks to obtain credentials this time through the Secret Service and the President's Press office. Times weren't as simple then.
Labels: body surfer, Camp Lejeune, Folly Beach, JFK, Marine Corps photographer, MCRD, President Kennedy, USD, woody wagon Washout Area
So 20 years ago I was living in Tallahassee and formed a business to create photo business cards.
When I came back to Charleston I still would keep my eye out for a suitable business for my cards.
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