Mark's Photo Travels

Recently, Tom Taylor wrote two blog entries about superimposing a building from an old photo over a present day photo to create a composite. These two blog entries are titled Plantation Ruins and a Cursed Tree and Composite Greenville History . His blog entries reminded me I took photos of two locations back in 2011 with the idea of making my own composite photos, but I didn't have any way to create them back then. Or so I thought. I was wrong. I had bought a scanner a few years ago (only Amazon knows when) that came with a copy of Photoshop Elements 8, the simplified cousin of Photoshop. While Elements 8 doesn't directly support layer masking (the feature needed for making composites quickly and easily), it can be simulated in Elements 8 and can also be added by a plugin. Nice. It's doable and I don't have to spend any money. Even better. The two locations I visited in 2011 were the two Taylors, SC depots. The first location, the Southern Railway depot,  was lo

With some time off this week and no bad weather to go with it (for once), I'm finally able to head out and visit a waterfall. I chose Falls Creek Falls in  northern Greenville County  because I knew from a previous visit a few years ago this one would not disappoint. And it certainly didn't. From my previous visit, I remembered the trail being steep and strenuous most of the way. My memory can be faulty at times, but not this time. The parking area and a small trailhead are located off of Fall Creek Road. I made sure to register at the kiosk first, just in case. I followed the stairs and began the uphill climb. This trail is well marked with purple blazes. Eventually, the trail leveled off and then began trending downhill as I neared the crossing over Little Falls Creek. Soon, the steep uphill climb resumed through a series of switchbacks. At one switchback turn, I heard a waterfall over on Little Falls Creek, now some distance away to the east. Budding trees