Behind the Pictures

My First Roll of Film

50 years ago today, February 23 1971, my father brought home the prints and negatives from the first roll of film I ever shot. I still remember him walking in the door with the white envelope from Chick’s Camera Center in his hand. If you know where to look you can see the cost was 91 cents.

The roll of Kodak black and white 120 film came with my first camera – a plastic, black and blue Diana. It was a gift from my grandparents, Grace and Pal. Based on subject matter, I probably received it for my 12th birthday in August 1970.

One of the only 2 photos to turn out is of my brother Neal as a baby sitting on our back porch with my mother’s hand resting on him. He was born in July 1970. The other is of my sister, Claudette and her friend Aggie, playing with their Barbie dolls on our front porch. That one is the first official photograph I ever took.

A couple of things that stand out to me is the wooden crate of empty Pepsi bottles and my banana bike in the lower right corner.

I must have also been disappointed on that day in Feb 1971, when only 2 prints came back. After all, for whatever reason, I had waited 4-5 months to have the film processed. Not like now when you can see the photo instantly. However, I was excited when I found the package recently with film and prints intact. I do wish though, that there had been a photo of my mother and father in there. A couple of other frames were of nothing special of the yard and blurred from double exposures. The rest were exposed to some very bad light leaks. Although the Diana cameras are known for their light leaks, these were probably due to my lack of experience.

Black and white negatives of 120 film shot in 1970 with Diana camera

Charles Register is a North Carolina photographer and videographer with over 30 years experience producing quality, creative imagery for corporations, advertising agencies, magazines and small businesses in boardrooms, resorts and remote locations around the world. Emphasis on travel and tourism, master planned communities, lifestyle, environmental portraiture, architectural photography, scenic landscapes and golf courses. Contact for assignments at 919 414.8235 or charles@charlesregister.com and please visit https://charlesregister.com

The Photograph that is Everywhere and How It Got There.

Few photo shoots, especially these days, have unlimited budgets. As a photographer working with small town advertising dollars, I had to get creative in more ways than one. While New Bern has a pretty good travel and tourism marketing budget for a town it’s size, 30 some professional models for one shot were not included in it. And there were 6 shots total. Finding 30 people that could volunteer their time was also difficult for the staff at the New Bern CVB, aka visitnewbern.com

The final shot for this campaign was set for Thursday evening on the deck of Persimmons Waterfront Restaurant. Thursday nights included a live band along with good food and a beautiful view of the Neuse River. Tom Lewis, art director with High Tide Creative and I went out early to establish the best view.

That is where my 12 ft ladder with a tripod ball head mounted to the top, was set up and remained for the rest of the night. Once the camera was placed in the ball head it was not removed until it was too dark too shoot anymore. This was critical because the only feasible way to have the deck full of people having fun, no empty tables and waiters in all the right places was to take over 300 photos as people arrived, ate, moved around, finished their dinner, left and new patrons came in. I knew it was most likely going to take several different frames to get all the key elements and those elements would have to be combined in post and the closer one framed aligned with another the better.

Tom got a little antsy early on as the crowd was slow arriving and the light was not what he had in mind. I assured Tom that as dusk settled in the light would be perfect. I had added a couple of 1K hot lights to add some contrast and warmth to the existing deck lights. As far as the crowd, he just had to trust that it would all work out. Well it did work out as more folks showed up to hear the band and enjoy the late summer evening. And by blending parts of 14 different photos to create the one final image that I have seen used more times and in more places than any other photo I ever took. Most of the time I never see the actual use of a photo.

The first time I saw the photo in use was on a billboard on Hwy 70 outside of Kinston. Ironically I was on the way to New Bern. It has been used on the visitnc.com website. I’ve seen it in Our State magazine. I’ve seen it in several publications displayed around New Bern while visiting there. I live in Raleigh now but New Bern is my hometown. Of course it is also on the visitnewbern.com website, and is used on their Facebook and Instagram accounts regularly.

When my daughter Lily was younger she liked to go to Barnes and Nobles for the books. But we would also go to the magazine rack and see if we could find one of my photos in something. Often we did.

When my wife Nancy, Lily and I were on the way to Boone for Lily’s wedding we stopped at the Northwest North Carolina Visitor Center. So I had to challenge Lily to see how long it would take to find one of my photos among the dozens of tourism publications on display. Sure enough, in a minute or two I found the photo in the 2017 North Carolina Travel Guide.

Recently a guy called me from a construction company about doing a shoot for them. Turns out the guy’s father is one of the men standing in the photo.

How to Move 96 Tons of Supplies into a Flood Zone. Operation Airdrop RDU

Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina in September 2018, leaving behind historic devastation and flooding that made many towns inaccessible by land. I-40 looked like a river instead of an interstate highway. Operation Airdrop, staged at RDU International Airport, provided much needed relief with dozens of private pilots flying supplies in, most using their own planes. I heard one generous and adventurous soul flew from Alaska in the plane he built himself.

Like hundreds of others wanting to help, I showed up at the airport one morning, with no idea how to help. Donations had been pouring in. Supplies were stacked everywhere. Volunteers were moving around like ants sorting, organizing, repacking boxes and filling carts to go be loaded on the next plane out. Yet, everything seemed to be under control.

I found the person in charge and asked if there was anything I could do as a photographer. An hour later I was on the Joe Gibbs Racing team jet, loaded with bottled water, food, diapers, cleaning supplies and a water filtration system, bound for Wilmington. In 5 days, over 96 tons of goods were also delivered to New Bern, Kinston, Jacksonville, Lumberton and other communities.

Beauty Before and After the Devastation

In the late 1990’s, I made several trips to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. While OBX is one of my favorite places in the world and I have camped and surfed out there many times, the main reason for these trips were to photograph the largest, most pristine area of sand dunes and sea oats I’ve ever seen. That area was the northern tip of Pea Island , immediately after coming off the Oregon Inlet Bridge. I was very pleased when one of the photos was used for the cover of the North Carolina Travel Guide.

I only recently learned that this unspoiled dunescape was the result of FDR’s New Deal in the 1930’s. Workers from the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps built sand fences along the beach from Virginia to Ocracoke Inlet to trap the blowing sand and once the dunes had grown large enough, planted sea oats and cord grass to stabilize the dunes. Prior to that the Outer Banks were predominately flat.

North Carolina had been fortunate that no serious hurricanes had hit the coast in a long time. Somehow I knew that good fortune was not going to last forever. In the 2000’s a series of storms battered North Carolina and the Outer Banks. Much of the dune field and vegetation was destroyed. On a later trip I stopped to walk around what had once been such a lush landscape, to see the damage and what was left. Some massive dunes had been washed away and others had huge chunks missing. But what the erosion had revealed were layer upon layer of the growth of the dune, much like growth rings of a tree. That day I took over 400 unique photos of the beautiful patterns that had been left behind. This is just 4 of my favorites.

King Mackerel Prepared by a Master Chef

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Of all the photo shoots I have been on over the years this one for Grady-White is among the best. There are several reasons why. I had been wanting to do a shoot for Grady-White for awhile. I like boats. I grew up on the coast and always knew about Grady-White boats, some of the best built. I even worked for a boat company at one time.

Five of us spent a week in July on Bald Head Island. Joining me were two assistants, the art director and Charlie Adams, President of Adams and Longino Advertising. We stayed in a condo that was connected to the same dock in the photo. So every morning before sunrise we would leave the condo, walk down the dock to photograph this one boat for a couple of hours. We repeated the process in the afternoon until sunset. Although the boat never moved, we got a variety of looks with different light, skies and camera angles. The rest of the day we spent talking, resting or going to the beach. But what made this shoot unique was Charlie. Charlie is a master chef. He prepared these amazing night time meals with fresh seafood. The most memorable was the smoked King Mackerel. The end result was a poster in color and a black and white ad and one of the best weeks ever.

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Now You See It, Now You Don’t!

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What you see here is the new student housing building at VCU. What you don’t see is the traffic signal and traffic sign that was in front of it. Due to the tight constraints of this urban environment, the best view included the signal and sign covering part of the building. There was just no way around it. What was the solution? Did the city of Richmond remove the light, sign, pole and all? No. What I did was photograph the building from the ideal spot, despite the obstruction. I then moved a few feet over, far enough for the camera to see parts of the building that were covered in the first shot but not far enough to change the angle too much.

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Using Photoshop, I copied the uncovered areas from the second shot and placed them over the signal, sign and pole in the first shot. The concept was simple, but required great attention to detail to blend the two. I had to skew some parts to match the lines of the building. Since light is always changing at dusk, I also had to color match. Next, I blended the streaking car lights from shot 2 into shot 1.

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At this point I chose a sky from my library to replace the existing sky and remove the remaining traffic signal and street sign. I also flipped the new sky photo so the darker clouds would be on the right side above the building instead of hidden behind it.

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Was It Just Plain Luck?

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Some have asked if it was planned or a lucky photo opportunity. I did plan it. As a professional photographer that is what I do. I got the idea while sitting at a traffic light. In front of me was a dog in the back of a pick up truck. I envisioned a vintage red truck and began searching for one. Found a couple that weren’t quite right. One wasn’t even drivable. Then one day I saw this truck drive through an intersection in Raleigh. So I followed him. When he stopped at the next traffic light, I got out, ran up to him and told him my idea. He was all for it. I had already scouted locations and had one that was perfect. My friend Maggie had a Dalmatian. Now everything was in place so we set it up for one Sunday afternoon. There you have it.

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