Bryan Stovall's Blog

The “Live Oak”, Georgia’s State Tree

Bryan Stovall — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:35:22 +0000

The Live Oak, genus Quercus, is a general term for a large number of species of Oaks that are still green during Winter when other Oaks, such as Red Oak, White Oak, Water Oak and others are bare and dead looking. They do shed their leaves periodically, especially in the spring, but are never totally bare. The species virginiana, usually found in Georgia and the Southeastern US, is also Georgia’s State Tree. Some live to be several hundred years old, partially because they are both strong and flexible. Those qualities led to their use in shipbuilding, especially in keels and knees, where strong curves or angles were important. For that reason, the genus was almost depleted in Europe, so the new and abundant supply in Colonial America was important, before the widespread use of iron or steel.Savannah’s two best know big oaks are the Majestic Oak, found in a residential area by the same name, off LaRoche Ave. near Savannah State University, and the Candler Oak on the property of the original Candler Hospital, a pre Civil War hospital located on Drayton St. Majestic Oak is over three hundred years old, and the Candler Oak is approaching three hundred years. It shaded both Confederate and Union Soldiers during the Civil War.On Georgia’s barrier islands, long a source for the big oaks, many were either harvested for the shipbuilding industry, or cleared for farm land. However, they are regenerating, and some of the large old trees remain. One of the best known, although easily missed in the heavily wooded setting, is Ossabaw Islands “Big Oak”. Estimated at around 850 years old, it is one of the oldest living oaks, but is in rapidly deteriorating health.The “granddaddy of all live oaks” is the Angel Oak on John’s Island, near Charleston SC. At an estimated 1500 years old, it is the oldest thing, living or man made east of the Mississippi. It has limbs 11 feet in circumference and the trunk is over 25 feet in circumference. It sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Hugo in 1989, but has recovered and is healthy again.In addition to the Spanish Moss and Resurrection Fern which are most often associated with the old oaks, they host little ecosystems of mosses, lichens, ferns, vines, insects, and animals. Some of the remaining Plantations have impressive canopies of live oaks lining their entrance drives. Some of these are now between 200 and 300 years old, and are very impressive. The most famous of Savannah’s such drives is at Wormsloe Plantation on Isle of Hope. The trees were planted in the mid 1700′s, and go on for more than a mile.The urban canopy for which Savannah is well known is also comprised mostly of live oaks. Some of our streets are long canopies of live oaks, and visitors from other parts of the country are astounded by our trees as well as our history.

The Cherokee Rose and “The Trail of Tears”

Bryan Stovall — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:32:12 +0000

One of the saddest stories of the European settlement of America is the removal of the native Americans, the Lower Creek, the Upper Creek, the Seminole, and finally, with the discovery of gold in North Georgia at Dahlonega, the Cherokee, were forced from their native lands, and removed to Oklahoma on the “Trail of Tears”. The Cherokee had adapted to the newcomers, and many had adopted European dress, they had their own alphabet, and were farmers and ranchers by this time. They were also fond of a flower, now known as the Cherokee Rose. It was proclaimed the Georgia State flower in 1916, and named the Cherokee Rose because it had been widely distributed over the state by the Cherokee.

Say “fromage”!

Bryan Stovall — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:39:49 +0000

Parents, please, please, please, don’t ever point a camera at your child and tell them to say cheese!
There is good reason for the term, “cheesy photograph”, or “cheesy grin”. And it is not a good thing. I don’t think I have ever had a usable image of a child saying “Cheese”. So why do so many of you still do it? And for that matter, when you have hired a professional to do photos of your child, don’t talk with the child unless the photographer asks you to. You don’t want the child interacting with you, you want him or her to interact with the photographer. Or even to be lost in their own world.

"Cecelia" is an outtake from a family session, taken during a break when she was relaxed.

Children are beautiful and generally have nice expressions without a big toothy smile. If you have to cheer them up you can always resort to poopoo or fart jokes and get a laugh. Let them be relaxed and natural.A photo session with a child should be a low stress situation. I have seen many times, that a child is so uptight about the photographer coming to photograph them, that the whole session was ruined. Let kids be kids. I prefer that the parents just tell them that Mr. Bryan is coming over to play with them, and let me take it from there. It is also best not to get them to wear something that they are not comfortable in. To take a child to the beach dressed in starched khakis and a white button down is torture for them. And invariably, the pictures show it. Let them wear shorts or a swimsuit, and maybe a nice t-shirt. The thing that I want to concentrate on is getting a pleasant, happy expression, and the eyes.

"Garner" is "painted" in Corel Painter.

The eyes are what creates magic in a portrait of a child, or anyone for that matter. And they are what I concentrate on.

Thanks and keep grinnin’, but don’t ever say “cheese”.

Makeup tips for brides

Bryan Stovall — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:42:39 +0000

In the current, March issue of Professional Photographer Magazine, Lorna Gentry has a great list of do’s and don’ts for brides regarding makeup and tanning. I have seen the best and worst of makeup and tanning over my years of photographing weddings, and feel that this is one of the best lists I’ve seen.

There are a couple things to start. Don’t go to a tanning booth or use a spray tan right before the wedding. Use a professional makeup artist.

If you don’t want to use a professional makeup artist, or even if you do, here are some tips that can make your wedding day or your portrait shoot much better.

1. BLEND, BLEND, BLEND. You can use your everyday makeup, but use more than you normally use every day. Many makeup professionals use airbrush makeup, the method of choice for HDTV, because it’s lightweight, waterproof and gives flawless coverage.
2. SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE. Use less makeup for a day wedding and more for evenings. You can get dramatic with the eye makeup.
3. DON’T SKIMP ON CONCEALER. Use a moisturizing concealer on the thin, sensitive skin under the eyes. If your concealer isn’t moisturizing, blend it with a skin cream. For blemishes, first treat them with a natural or over-the-counter anti-inflammatory, then cover with concealer.
4. DO A MAKEUP TRIAL RUN. It’s the only sure fire, stress free way to make sure you makeup will look beautiful.
5. NOT ALL MINERAL MAKEUP IS CREATED EQUAL. Titanium dioxide, a chemical used as sun block, can reflect flash, giving you a ghostly appearance. In 2009 makeup artist Annie May launched a line of mineral makeup formulated especially for photography called Advanced Mineral Makeup. May promises it won’t white-out the bride under a flash.
6. USE WATERPROOF MAKEUP WITH STAYING POWER. You don’t want to spend your reception in hte bathroom reapplying your makeup. Foundation, eyeliner and mascara should all be waterproof. In case you cry (and you probably will), have a tissue or handkerchief handy to gently blot your tears right at the eye.
7. KEEP YOUR LIPS MOISTURIZED AND COLORED. Dry lips look dreadful in photos. Have someone carry your lipstick for you and touch up often. Matte and gloss lipstick both photograph well, and be sure to use blended lip liner for enhanced definition.
8. DON’T FORGET THE GROOM. He may not want to hear this, but if he is read faced due to too much sun (or drinking), a little powder can help. That goes for shiny heads too. And it’s a good idea to slip a tube of Chapstick in the groom’s pocket for his dry lips, as well as a handkerchief to dab well-wishers’ makeup smudges off his suit.
9. DON’T SPRINKLE ON GLITTER. In photographs, it tends to look like little white spots, as if there’s something wrong with the camera.
10. REMEMBER to apply foundation and powder to your neck, shoulders and decolletage – you want your head to look like it belongs to your body

How many pictures at a wedding?

Bryan Stovall — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:43:15 +0000

“My dad always used to say, ‘It’s better to have 50 unbelievable photographs than 100 mediocre ones.’ It’s true. Before I push the shutter, I always ask myself, Would someone buy this photograph? If the answer is no, then I don’t take it.” -Andy Marcus from Professional Photographer, March 2010

This quote, from one of the truly elite wedding photographers in the world today, really got me thinking.

An old school photographer, when asked how many pictures he took at a wedding said “100″. That was about 5 or 6 rolls of 220 film, depending on the exact format. He knew exactly how many rolls of film he was dedicating to every wedding. This was a bit extreme, but I guess he had his system figured out. I’m afraid that, today, as digital imaging has come of age, we may have gone over the cliff in the opposite direction, routinely shooting 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 or more images at a wedding. And at really big weddings with 2 or 3 shooters, the sky’s the limit. Who’s counting, you say, since it is free. No more film, no more processing, no more paper proofs, what’s the big deal? Well, perhaps in our quest to shoot thousands of images, from which we pick a small percentage for an album and reprints, some of us have forgotten how to slow down, choose our moments, and really concentrate on getting unbelievable photographs.

So, one might ask, “Exactly whom are we shooting all these pictures for”? Most couples would be overwhelmed if we asked them to look at 3,000 or more pictures. We usually only need a hundred or so for the album, depending on the size. Do we enjoy editing through thousands of images? No one that I know does. So is it our collective insecurity? Do we think that since we’ve heard other photographers brag about how many images they shoot, we have to shoot more? With the ballooning numbers of part time and newcomer photographers shooting weddings these days, I suspect that there are many out there who think ,”if I shoot enough images, surely a certain percentage of them will be OK”. Maybe some think it’s easier to just shoot away than it is to really think and plan what they are shooting.

I would suggest that perhaps we need to heed Fred Marcus words and start concentrating more on quality than quantity.

Bridal detail with bouquet and gloves

Savannah Destination Wedding Photographer

Bryan Stovall — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:00:28 +0000

Savannah is a beautiful town, with amazing wedding venues full of history and romance for the couple planning a location event. Whether you choose a cathedral, a small church or chapel, one of our beautiful squares, or the beach, it is hard to go wrong. We have many wonderful wedding planners who can help you to plan a wonderful day. And Savannah is a fairly close knit community so most of us have worked together many times, and can give you lots of tips to get the professionals that you will need. There are also organizations, such as Savannah Wedding Tourism Council, which can help if you are out of town trying to plan.The most popular seasons are Spring and Fall, so if you are looking at either of these, you need to lock in your venue and vendors early. We are glad to offer ideas about venues for the ceremony, reception, and other parties and events. Happy planning!

Photographing the familiar

Bryan Stovall — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:36:53 +0000

One of my favorite photographer/teachers was asked in a seminar, “What is the secret to making great, interesting photographs?” His reply was to travel to magnificent places to shoot.

Now don’t get me wrong, nobody likes to travel and photograph more than I, but I think his off the cuff answer was very off the mark. It is easier to see possible images when you are away from the familiar, but there are great images waiting to be discovered in some of the most mundane places, if we practice “looking”.

Lost Savannah

Almost anyone with a decent camera can get nice images of the Grand Canyon, the Tetons, or Monument Valley, and I could enjoy being there and photographing every day. But the photographers I admire most are the ones who can produce great, interesting images of the more obscure, everyday things most of us see every day. A Maine photographer , Robert Mitchell, in 1996 did a small book/monograph called “Near Home”, a collection of just such images. He lives in a small community in coastal Maine, where there are indeed many magnificent vistas, but this book contains images of his back yard, or a snowy street scene, and yet it has been one of my favorites for a long time. http://www.mitchellphoto.com/monographs.html

The same goes for weddings. I am very fortunate to live in a beautiful city, a very popular “destination wedding” area. It is hard not to find an interesting spot for beautiful wedding images. But for those who may not live in Savannah, or Charleston, or any beautiful, warm place with incredible scenery who are able to produce great wedding work, you have my deepest admiration.

Common things we all miss

Bryan Stovall — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:15:48 +0000

While I’m on the subject of common things that we all miss, here’s one for all you Southerners who grew up around cotton. We all know what bales of cotton look like, we know the cotton boll, both open and before opening, but I’ve yet to have anyone come into the gallery who has instantly identified a single cotton blossom closeup. It’s one of those things that we always saw huge fields of, with many blossoms on each cotton stalk, that we never bothered to look at the single flower, which is quite beautiful. So many times we don’t see the forest for the trees. So for all you people who don’t know what one looks like, here it is in all it’s glory.

I am fascinated by cotton because it was so intertwined with the rise and fall (Civil War), and re-rise (is that a word) and fall(boll weevil and Great Depression) of the economy of the South.

A single cotton blossom with unopened bolls in background.

Lovely Rita

Bryan Stovall — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:39:35 +0000

After dropping the car pool kids off for their last day of 8th grade on Friday, I was listening to a little music on WRHQ on the way to work. I listen to WRHQ because they play songs I usually recognize, I can understand at least some of the lyrics, and they don’t have lots of dirty words. In other words I’m getting old. They also play lots of songs I haven’t heard in awhile. A song from 40 years ago by the name of “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid”, by a little group called the Beatles came on, and It occurred to me that really good artists can come up with inspiration from the most seemingly mundane things.

Lots of people can do great music, paintings or photographs of spectacular places or things, but the great ones can take the simplest things and make inspirational art. Ansel Adams, one of our best known photographers, of whom I am a great fan, photographed lots of really grand places and made great art. But an even greater inspiration, to me as a photographer, of all time was Eliott Porter. At a young age I was greatly impressed by his ability to take the smallest, simplest things in nature, and turn them into images of which I was in awe. His book, “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World” prompted me at one time to quit my job as a banker and move to Maine to see and photograph the things he had photographed. I had never been to Maine, but we packed up a Ryder truck and all our earthly belongings and moved to Brunswick Maine. Eliot Porter’s book, “Glen Canyon, the Place No One Knew”, was a different kind of book, more spectacular scenery, grand vistas, etc. It was a documentary book about Glen Canyon on the Colorado River, upstream from the Grand Canyon, which was being dammed to create Lake Powell. It’s premise that Lake Powell was an environmental debacle is now proving very prophetic, as the lake levels are steadily decreasing because of the water demand both upstream and down. Lake levels at present are 71 feet below full pool, at a time when the spring thaw has raised it considerably.

Now I enjoy traveling to exotic places and photographing majestic scenery as much as anyone, but I am also always on the lookout for the not so magnificent,the more ordinary, and seeking ways to present them that makes them worth spending a little, or hopefully a lot, of time looking at them.

I guess all artists hope that sometime, maybe forty years from now, someone will look at something we’ve done and be inspired that we took something, however mundane, and presented it in a way that is memorable and worthwhile.

Bryan Stovall has a blog!

Bryan Stovall — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:01:27 +0000

To all of you devoted friends and followers who have been scratching your heads and whispering to each other when you saw me at events, speculate no longer! I have arrived in the blogosphere!

It’s not always easy to talk about oneself, but it’s been brought to my attention time and time again that I must give it a try, but rather than give in completely, I’d rather keep my community posted on things that are going on around us, and here in the Bryan Stovall Gallery & Studio, the newest member of the Stovall family.

By way of introduction, I’d like to help you get to know the gallery first:

I began my search for a venue in which to display my decades of accumulated photography almost ten years ago now. I had plenty of time to muse, and had formulated a very specific set of demands for the space. I knew I wanted brick to set off my classic-style photography; I knew I wanted a historic building in keeping with the high level of relevance that the city of Savannah boasts. It was also imperative that I be located deep in the historic district, where the heart of the city beats.

When I located the John L. Hardee Building at 10 Whitaker St., built in 1878, the brick was covered in plaster, the hardwood floors-including an original two-panel trap door!- were covered in carpet, and its 1600 square feet were boxed off into cubicles! The potential was obvious to me, however, and with the help of Inman Park Properties, we were able to strip the carpet and renew the floors, tear down the drywall and the popcorn ceiling, eradicate the cubicles, and restore the glory of brick, hardwood, and exposed pipes to the building.

The results are as you see here:

We are now nestled comfortably in the center of Savannah, and looking forward to hosting events, and continuing to contribute art and spirit to community gathering places and happenings. Come on in and see us!