Author: bmailman21

I am a retired professional who can be found traveling around the county in our RV with my husband and our dog. When not traveling we can all be found in North Carolina in the States. We have spent many years traveling the western world and now want to explore our great country and our fellow countrymen. There is so many sights to see and roads to travel to get there!

Winston-Salem North Carolina Skyline (softened)

As I left the downtown area, I stopped to look at some construction that is going on. After watching the tractors for a while, I walked back to the car and saw this nice view of Winston-Salem. The center building is the R.J. Reynolds office building. It is an art deco building. I entered the building one time a few years ago when I was walking around the downtown area. I was drawn to the beauty of the outside of the building and the details it carries. I was intrigued to see the inside. The interior of the building is very beautiful! Unfortunately, R.J. Reynolds does not allow visitors and I was quickly, but politely, shown the door as I had no business to conduct there. I would LOVE to tour this building just to see the architectural beauty that lies within! The lobby is totally art deco that seems locked in time. I’d love to photograph the inside!

USS North Carolina

USS North Carolina at Dusk

I took this photo when we were in Wilmington, North Carolina for a civil war weekend and had a dinner cruise aboard the Henrietta III on the Cape Fear River as part of the trip.  The whole weekend was great!  We cruised past the decommissioned USS North Carolina, a World War II Battleship as the sun was setting.  I really wanted to capture the light as it appeared at that moment reflecting off the water and onto the hull of the ship and then back onto the water.  Such a beautiful golden color, it was almost glowing!  The sky was also a very pretty pinkish purple coloration with not a cloud to be seen.  It was a glorious moment in a day filled with other such moments!  I didn’t have my tripod with me and even if I did I could not have used it on this boat as there were just to many people walking about on narrow outside walkways and I could feel the slight shivers and shimmy of the boat thru my feet as it cut thru the water.  I don’t think a tripod would have done much good and I am happy with the photo I ended up with as seen here.

I intentionally shot the ship a bit on the underexposed side to make sure that I captured all of the detail I could. What you say?!?  Underexpose a shot on purpose???  That’s just crazy talk!  ;^)        I use Adobe Lightroom  to process most of my photos and it does an exceptional job of pulling out the details when making the adjustments.  I also use Adobe Photoshop but to a much lesser extent.  I have soooo much to learn about the powers of Photoshop and I only know how to use a few of the features but I am learning!  I can say that I really am liking Lightroom 4 more than Photoshop though.  I am also learning the details of Lightroom and the powers that it has as well!  It amazes me to think how much easier that the computer adjustments/processing as compared to the old darkrooms that I was familar with when learning how to shoot.  So much has changed!  No noxious fumes or chemicals to work with either!  That part is nice but I do miss the intensity of the darkroom.  The absolute darkness….the smells of the chemicals….the quietness and the anticipation of questioning whether or not I am going to get the result I wanted.  Ahhh….good times.  Good times.

View from Camp Anderson

Camp Anderson

We toured Camp Anderson as part of the civil war history tour presented by Our State magazine and were allowed to stroll along the top of part of the earthen works erected there during the civil war by Confederate forces. The view was absolutely killer–seeing a large portion of the Cape Fear River. I think the original town was never rebuilt after it was destroyed by British troops during the American Revolution (it was a town called Brunswick, I think). I don’t know why it was not rebuilt as it seems like it would be the perfect area for trade as it is slightly inland and protected. The Confederates built up this area into Fort Anderson during the civil war to protect their supply line (Cape Fear River into Wilmington) from the union troops.

Wilmington, North Carolina Boat at the Dock at Night

We spent the weekend in Wilmington, NC on a guided tour with Our State magazine. It was very cool consisting of visitations to Civil War sites with history lectures and a great boat ride on the Henrietta III that included dinner. Can’t go wrong with that combo! Scenery was awesome and the experts were very interesting to listen to!

Boat tied up to the dock on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Boat tied up to the dock on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina.