This week, we spent a few days in Charleston, SC, one of our favorite cities. What a joy it is to explore around the historic district, south of Broad Street. It didn’t hurt that we had fabulous weather, including a balmy high of 75 degrees one day – not bad for mid-December!

These images were taken with my Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera, with a 24-70mm lens. This amazing camera is perfect for street photography – it is light, focuses quickly and takes beautifully sharp pictures.

Some of these images are just architectural details, while others show complete buildings. I simply responded to what was in front of me -especially strong graphical elements – and grabbed pictures that caught my attention.

I’m always amazed with how well maintained all the buildings are in Charleston, many of them dating back to the 1700’s. This is a very special city that plays an important role in our nation’s history.

Fort Sumter is just visible on the horizon, on the left side of this photograph.

The colors of the buildings, the trees and the sky were just spectacular. Most of these pictures “right out of the camera,” with no color adjustments added in Photoshop.

I’d love to hear from you what you think of these pictures or any stories you might have of your own time in Charleston.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

In this blog post, I’m looking back at some of my favorite portraits of women – of all ages. Most photographers will tell you that when they look at older work, they can find many things they’d do differently if the opportunity arose to take the same photograph again. And so it is with me. Hopefully, as our experience and skills grow, we get better at this craft, and so we easily find fault with the older pictures.

I chose these seven portraits because – for me – they still hold up under my usually harsh self-critical eye. In each of these pictures, something serendipitous happened to make the photograph “work.” These are portraits I’m still proud of.

The first image above is a corporate headshot for Michele, a principal in a marketing firm. Michele is a true professional and very good at what she does. But she is also personable, approachable and a joy to spend time with. These were the qualities I was aiming for in the pose and the facial expression.

The portrait above is of a 16-year old model I worked with in Sante Fe. She was a confident, serious young woman with a penetrating gaze. You will note in both the first two pictures I show part of the subject’s hands. Hands can be tricky but if used properly can be very expressive.

This is my wife, Marjorie, taken at Lincoln Center in NYC, just before we went into a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. The picture was taken quickly with an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera. I posed her in front of the ballet poster for many reasons – the romantic feel, the blue matching the blue of Marjorie’s outfit, and because ballet is another love of hers. I like her expression of joyful anticipation for the performance. This is a favorite image of Marjorie’s and of many who know her because it captures something of who she is.

Wilhelmina in this picture is a senior in high school and an experienced ballet dancer. Perhaps some would argue this is not strictly a portrait – a matter of opinion. I was going for a dream-like quality. One wonders – if she was actually dreaming – what the dream looked like!

This adorable 2-year old, Elora, was going through her “terrible” stage during most of our shoot. But she is a joyful and adventurous and playful young lady, and when she showed me those qualities, I was lucky enough to grab them.

Martha, age 8, and Margot, age 10, are full of fun and exuberance. This picture shows a lot about the relationship of these sisters – little sister looking up to big sister, big sister taking care of her but also looking straight ahead- literally and figuratively. This image was the family Christmas card.

The last portrait below is of my friend, Christina, a professional singer and voice coach. We shot together several times and I made a video of some of those images, with Christina singing a classic Buddy Holly song in the background. You can view the video here.

In all of these portraits, I’m trying to capture something of the subject’s personality. I’d love to know what you think and answer any questions you might have. Now, I’m ready to take my next portrait!

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

This weekend, I went to Jarvis Creek Park here on Hilton Head Island, looking for birds. I found this anhinga, perched on a branch at the water’s edge. Having been coached by some of the local Audubon Club members, I tried to approach him very slowly, giving him (him?) a chance to get comfortable with me. After just a few minutes, I was within about 10 feet of this amazing bird.

Occasionally he would look over at me, but mostly he was just looking out over the pond or cleaning his feathers.

It’s fun to imagine what a bird might be thinking, such as, “What is that guy doing with that black metal thing that keeps making a clicking sound?”

After a while, he got bored and took off, looking for fish in the pond for dinner. Thank you, my new friend, for posing for me.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

Last week, I attended the Photoshop World conference in Orlando. My new friend, Shannon, was also a participant and we did a photo shoot together. Shannon is a communications specialist at a college in Kentucky.

My goals were to shoot some images with window light and also to work with narrow depth of field, with some backgrounds fading away in the distance, as shown in our first photograph, above.

In the second image, I was working with Shannon’s reflection in the window, while also getting a bit of the background fade on the right edge of the picture. But Shannon’s face remains the primary focus.

While the other pictures in this post show Shannon with a serious/contemplative pose, she has a lovely and infectious smile and I wanted to be sure to include one of those photographs as well.

In this picture, I was using the hallway as a framing device for the portrait.

As always, I would appreciate any questions or comments about my work.

Many thanks to Shannon for a fun and successful shoot!

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

I’ve been working in the area of impressionistic landscapes and seascapes. If you missed it, see my recent blog post, Landscape Impressionism. The image above is my most recent effort, taken at Pinckney Island, South Carolina.

This type of image works well printed on a wrap-around canvas. The way the photograph was captured and edited in Photoshop, combined with printing on canvas, creates the illusion of a painting.

Here’s a detail of the left edge of the canvas, showing how the image wraps around the frame. This makes for a nice, clean presentation. The canvas was fairly large – 42 inches by 28 inches.

In a recent auction in New York, one of Monet’s haystack paintings sold for $110 million. That’s a nice incentive for me to keep working in Impressionism!

Shown below is how the photograph looks in our bedroom. If you are interested in owning one on my landscape pictures on canvas, let’s talk!

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

This is my third post about great egrets – I’ve gotten pretty hooked on photographing them. If you missed the first two posts, see the links to the right under “Recent Articles” to read those posts. As you can see above, the newborns have arrived over the past few weeks.

All these pictures have been taken at Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, a glorious place to observe birds, between Hilton Head Island and the mainland.

I’ve probably been out to the island with my camera 12 or 15 times already. It’s always a treat to see what I’ll discover on each trip. The egrets are amazingly elegant and graceful in flight.

The newborns are a kick. They certainly know how to express their desire for food, perhaps like all babies! As yet I have not seen any of them try to fly out of the nest. One of my birding friends suggests it’s usually 40-50 days before they take the leap.

I have been shooting other species of birds too – stay tuned for an upcoming post! Thanks, as always, for taking a look at my photographs.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

And now, for something completely different!

As loyal readers know, I’ve been active recently photographing birds, principally at Pinckney Island Natural Wildlife Refuge. While I’ve been out on the island, in addition to the birds, I’ve been experimenting with some abstract landscapes and seascapes.

In the first image above, I used a fairly slow shutter speed – 1/15th of a second – and purposely jiggled the camera, in a northeast to southwest line. The idea is to give an impression of the scene rather than a sharply focused photograph. Perhaps a viewer may have a sense of wind, blowing the marshgrass. I call this “Pinckney Island Dream,” as I imagine this might how I would picture this scene in my dreams. (Sadly, I remember very few of my dreams!)

In the picture above, I used an even slower shutter speed, 1/5th of a second, and moved the camera side to side while the shutter was open. And in this one I did make the colors more saturated in Photoshop. So the photograph (and to me, it’s still a photograph) is more abstract. But the viewer hopefully can still recognize: the marsh in the foreground, the water, a marshy island, more water, trees in the background and then sky- six layers of nature in all.

These photographs don’t show up as well as I’d like in the small constraints of a blog. But I plan to make some large prints, possibly on canvas, and I’m hopeful they will make attractive pieces of art. We’ll see!

Here is a third image I worked on, as it appeared right out of the camera. It was shot at a fast shutter speed and is in sharp focus, but it’s a pretty flat and uninteresting picture. In Photoshop, I blurred it (side to side) and added contrast and color saturation. You can see the result below.

Would love to hear what you think of these images. I plan to make more abstract work in the coming months.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

Recently we spent a few days in one of our favorite cities, Charleston, South Carolina. I love shooting in the historic district, and on this trip I focused on just parts of houses and small architectural details. In the image above, we have three iconic Charleston ingredients: a flag, a palm tree and a piazza (or porch in non-Charleston lingo).

Mercury, was the Roman god of shopkeepers, travelers, thieves and tricksters. (He must have been very busy!) This statue of Mercury is in the garden of the Calhoun Mansion. During Hurricane Hugo (1989) it was thrown a few blocks away in the storm and both arms were broken off. When it was repaired, the arms were mistakenly reversed, so the dagger is now held aloft, rather than in the arm behind him. No one seemed too concerned about the change.

A couple more flag images, above and below.

I always marvel at how well-maintained the houses are in the historic district, South of Broad Street. Hard to imagine the expense of keeping these houses looking sharp, especially with regular storms and floods hitting the area.

In the photograph below, I could have moved slightly to get the sun behind the house, but I kind of like the effect of the sun’s rays wrapping around the house.

The people of Charleston are always so gracious and welcoming to visitors. To me, this open doorway below is a good symbol of their openness and friendliness.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

Well, I’ve continued to go out to Pinckney Island to photograph these gorgeous great egrets in mating season. Here are some more photographs, but if you missed my first blog post, be sure to see Great Egrets.

It’s amazing to compare how the egrets look at rest, as in the image above, versus in flight, as in the first picture. At rest, the wings are pulled in tight to a sleek, compact package, but when they take flight, the huge graceful wings open up – it looks like a completely different bird (to this neophyte birder, anyway!)

In the image above, I shot on an overcast day, and it was hard to pick out the birds against the flat, dull sky. Their legs also camouflaged well with the branches they stood on. This one is just coming in for a smooth landing.

That same dull day, some of the images came out with very little color. So, with this one, I took the little bit of color out and made a black and white photograph.

Stay tuned for more images. I post them first on Instagram, at #blakerobinsonphotography. Also, I’ve just started a newsletter covering a variety of topics related to photography. Please email me if you’d like to be on the mailing list.

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”

For the last couple of weeks, I have been photographing great egrets, a majestic, graceful bird, with a wingspan of up to four feet. Right now, the egrets are in their mating finery, with gorgeous feathers and bright green coloring around the eyes.

These pictures were all taken at Pinckney Island, a wildlife refuge island that sits between the mainland and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The fellow above was taking sticks back to a nest he was building.

The plumes of great egrets were highly prized for hat feathers in the early part of the 20th Century, to point where the birds faced the real possibility of extinction. One of the very first federal conservation laws protected these birds and egrets have, thankfully, come back in big numbers.

What a joy it has been for me to be with, observe and photograph these magnificent birds. Can’t wait to get out shooting again in the next few days!

Working both in the studio and on location, photographer Blake Robinson serves Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and the other communities of Beaufort County, South Carolina.

 “Individual, Indelible, Iconic Images”