One of the mini-churches at the Rock Garden in Calhoun

A Mini Photo Outing

I toyed with going to Greenville with my cousin this past weekend but a ton of stuff needed attention around the house so I opted to stay home. I got so much done on Saturday, and it felt great. 

I have a bad habit of letting clutter pile up. They're neat little piles, not too hard to hide, but my house is small, and the piles get on my nerves. It was time for some serious organizing and cleaning. I've got more to do, but I'm so glad I got as much done as I did.   

Sunday was a little gloomy outside, but when my friend Lauren called and asked if I wanted to find a place to take some photos, I was all in.

As an aside - If you have a creative passion like photography, I highly recommend finding a good friend who likes doing the same thing. Lauren and I are always pushing each other to get out and shoot, and, especially if you're a woman, it's better to venture out in pairs. There have been more than a few occasions in the city when I'm happy I wasn't alone. 

Anyway, on Sunday, I had an idea of a place we could go. 

I'm always looking for places that aren't too far from the city but offer an unusual view or something quirky. I come across things and file them away on my phone or bookmark them on my computer to come back to them. 

This was the perfect opportunity to check one of them out, so we did. 

We rode up to Calhoun to this place called the Rock Garden. It's behind a Seventh-Day Adventist Church and it's a prayer garden. The fascinating thing about it is the miniature buildings made from stones, seashells, and other materials. The mini-buildings are scattered throughout the property. 

It's not a big place but it was bigger than I initially thought and it took longer than I thought it would to look at all the buildings. There weren't many people there but enough that it was hard to get the photos I wanted. 

Unfortunately, it was also bright out so it wasn't my favorite shooting condition. But that's part of the fun - challenging myself to get photos in different settings and conditions. It was also physically hard to position myself to capture the buildings from the angles I wanted. The little pathways are narrow and small, and the whole thing is built next to a creek, so there's a lot of water in and around everything.

I did a lot of crouching down and leaning over. My yoga practice comes in handy for situations like this - Malasana squat, here we come!

A little building sits in the creek shallows

Stoking Creativity

Sometimes I get in a rut when it comes to my creativity. The best thing when that happens (at least for me) is to get out, go to new places, and work on my photography. I'm also taking some figure-drawing classes, though I've only made it to a few so far. 

The business end of working for myself drives me crazy. I spent way too much time pulling everything together to get my taxes done. I'm trying to be more organized this year so it doesn't take me so long next tax season, but at least for now, my taxes are done!

Hopefully, we'll get some good weather in the next couple of weeks too. It's Tuesday late afternoon as I'm writing this, and it's wet and rainy out and has been all day. 

I hope you had a great weekend and got to do something fun. 

See you between the raindrops!

xoxo,
Susan

If you want to see more of my photos, you can find them here.