Photos by contributing photographer Rob Byko | The new year brought toasts, resolutions, hoppin’ john and collard greens. And for some brave (crazy?) few, Jan. 1 was a day to strip down into summer wear and run into the ocean. Doesn’t sound like something we’d want to do — but the annual party on Sullivan’s Island does sound great. Here are some fun photos by Rob Byko showing what you missed — and may want to take on next year!
By Cynthia Bledsoe, special to Charleston Currents | We traveled from Vienna to Melk and Linz, Austria and then into Germany, stopping in Passau, Regensburg and Nuremberg. Each town was decorated with different lights and festive Christmas decorations and the markets were filled to the brim with food, ornaments and lovingly hand-crafted goods.
By Rob Byko, contributing photographer | Approaching Magnolia Plantation at night through the gates along a winding drive, you can tell you’re in for a treat. Over the treetops and through the underbrush, you see your first glimpse of the brilliant lights in colors too numerous to mention.
Entering the festival grounds, the evening explodes in color and sound. The lights’ reflections wash over joyful faces of patrons walking the garden paths. The light dances along ponds and through the eyes of children who seem lost in the fantasy.
An easy walking trail guides you first along a fairy tale of characters, followed by flowers and fauna taller than your head. Then you meet huge butterflies and ladybugs, pandas and peacocks. Turn a corner and you find a kaleidoscope from the animal kingdom featuring playful lions, stoic zebras and tigers so vivid they seem real.
Finally, the tour returns to fantasy, placing you face-to-face with a 200-foot-long dragon whose majestic head soars more than 45 feet in the air. …
Special to Charleston Currents | West Ashley resident and avid photographer Cynthia Bledsoe and her husband Michael Kaynard last month returned from a 4,500-mile automobile trip to Colorado and New Mexico.
Staff reports | Scores of impassioned activists, young and older, crowded the Stern Center Gardens at the College of Charleston Friday afternoon to discuss real solutions to climate change and ask leaders to do more and better. All across the world, millions did the same.
In Charleston at the Climate Crisis Moment event, the energy of participants, particularly girls and women college students, was inspiring, writes contributing photographer Rob Byko.
“They crafted the words, scheduled the speakers, led the charge and called out for all of Charleston to come out and match their enthusiasm. The drum beat repeated over and over…’Register to Vote’ and ‘Get Out the Vote’ If you can’t vote or are too young to vote, influence those who can. They crafted the words, scheduled the speakers, led the charge and called out for all of Charleston to come out and match their enthusiasm. The drum beat repeated over and over…’Register to Vote’ and ‘Get Out the Vote’ If you can’t vote or are too young to vote, influence those who can.”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The distinguishing feature of many churches in Quebec’s Eastern Townships seems to be that they’re skinny with tall steeples that accentuate their comparatively diminutive width.
Inside, these simple churches have 15 to 20 pews and can hold, we guess, up to 100 people when packed. Here are a few that we spied on a recent visit. Enjoy:
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The unexpected delights of a recent vacation to Canada were the murals that flourished around Montreal.
According to the city’s tourism website, “street art has become one of Montréal’s core visual identities over the last couple of decades, thanks to the marks left all over the city by intrepid artists like Omen, Bonar, Zïlon, Roadsworth, Chris Dyer, Kevin Ledo, Jason Botkin, the HVW8 and En Masse collectives and so many more. Now with two annual graffiti festivals, one of international renown, there’s something to see on virtually every block.”
By Rob Byko, contributing photographer | On Friday night when most folks in Charleston were just getting home from their work week, meeting friends for dinner or heeding happy hour’s last call, a few hundred folks got together at Riverfront Park to attend “Lights for Liberty – A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps.”
By Rob Byko, contributing photographer | There’s a diversity of subject matter from Sullivan’s Island in these scenes shot over the last few years. Enjoy!
By Chuck Boyd, special to Charleston Currents | In 1964, I had a picture pending to be on the full MISCELLANY page in LIFE Magazine, but I could not identify where it was taken!
I was in a helicopter, returning inland after taking photos of surfers for my newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. I was a staff photographer for the paper, lugging a bulky 4×5 Speed Graphic camera. I quickly managed to grab two shots as we passed over an apple orchard with the word “QUIET” plowed in the field in huge letters.
Back at the paper, the editor passed on using it, but when I sent a copy to LIFE magazine, the editors immediately called to say they needed a caption with the facts! We photographers at the paper had submitted shots before and always received a polite stock rejection slip… but this time, they phoned me.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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