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For 65 years South Carolina outdoor enthusiasts have depended upon
South Carolina Wildlife magazine to bring them the latest news and information about the Palmetto State's beautiful and exciting outdoors.
I'm Jim Goller. I'm director of the Hampton Wildlife Fund for South Carolina.
Of course I started my career with the magazine as a photographer,
But I'm here to introduce four others to my right and left whose images have brought you the great South Carolina outdoors for many many years.
And I want to introduce each one of them individually first off here's Ted Borg to talk to you a little bit, thank you Jim.
I'm looking at the first telephoto lens that I was using when I first came to work here.
And it was my favorite lens, now they make them around $3,000 at that time now they make them above $10-$15,000.
And of course I'd like to have one. The first person I hired was Philip Jones.
The next gentleman to my right is Phillip Jones as Ted mentioned earlier
And Phillip and I kind of hung around for quite a while as the only two photographers that could keep up with Ted.
But I'll let Philip tell his story.
That's true Jim we had some really good times on the road and if we'd been paid by the mile back then we'd been rich and retired by now wouldn't we.
My good buddy Ted Borg right here the reason I have a career in photography is because he took a chance in October of 1973,
And he hired me, put me in the dark for about four and a half years processing the film for the South Carolina Wildlife Department,
And one day I saw the light and I got out of that dark room and was a photographer from then on.
And thank goodness because it wasn't but a few years after that that digital came on the scene and wow what a difference that made for all of us.
But one of the stories that always sticks out in my mind is that Ted and I used to love to shoot deer every year.
We had a special place that we would go and photograph deer and anyway we were split up and I was in my little area,
Ted was somewhere eating peanut butter crackers and whatever it was else he had in his backpack and I felt like something was watching me.
And I said well it can't be Ted because he's nowhere around me. But you ever had that feeling where something is watching you?
And I kind of looked off to my right and looking at me as I'm looking at him was about a 10-point buck just staring at me.
And I take one hand and I ease the camera around and I'm looking right at it and I'm going please don't move please don't move and I went click click click.
And the next thing I saw was the whitetail of that deer going back into the woods and that photograph made a poster for the South Carolina magazine and I'm so proud of that.
Well that's a great story Phillip and I appreciate you telling it we'd be remiss if we didn't mention another South Carolina Wildlife magazine photographer
With true talent, great creativity and truly produced some works of art for the magazine
His name coincidentally was Art Carter and Art passed away some years back. He left South Carolina Wildlife magazine to go to outdoor life would former editor John Color.
And I think Phillip Jones has something he'd like to mention about Art.
What impressed me about Art was he was one of the finest set up photographers.
Because I went with him a couple times and we went to an old house and there was nothing there with a porch.
And he went and found an old chair then he found an old hat, then he had an old shotgun and he had some duck decoys.
And I stood there and watch and what is he doing and all of a sudden he put all that together on the front porch,
The light was coming in from the side and it made the cover of one of our magazines and I mean it was beautiful.
Robert how about you? I'd kind of like to talk to the enthusiasts that are listening to us today that not every day is a winner or home run.
You have to go somewhere and you have to play by the light. If the light's not good you can get a great picture if something lucky happens,
But if the lights no good then you just go well we'll get it tomorrow and not every day is a great success.
But if you keep working at it and hitting it like an axe to a tree eventually it's gonna fall,
You're gonna get a great photograph and it'll be something that you can be proud of.
Michael how about you? Well when I first started one of the first assignments I had the agency the DNR was reintroducing peregrine falcons into the wild in the Upstate in Pickens County.
And the first place they set them up was on top of Table Rock and so the very first hack box which is the box they keep the birds in for when they're young and until they fledge was up there,
And so we had to fly up to the top of Table Rock in a helicopter with a pilot who was nicknamed Captain Crunch his name was Joe.
What was Joe's last name? Joe Gibson, a wonderful pilot but man he was mischievous.
But he, when we got up to the top It was just a sheer cliff and he could not land because the surface was tilted,
And so I had to just kind of get close to the rock and kind of slither out of this helicopter to get down on the rock
And I was absolutely terrified, that's the first time I'd ever been off of the ground in any kind of aircraft.
And so anyway later we had to move the hack boxes over to the late Jocassee area,
Because logistically it was just too difficult to take care of the birds up there it was too hard to get to,
And so it was a sheer cliff about 200 feet where they had blasted the rock out from the cliff side to build the Lake Jocassee dam.
They had to put the hack boxes right on the edge of this cliff and so I was able to get a couple of people to help me with climbing gear and everything
And we about maybe 40 50 feet maybe a little more that side view to the hack boxes I was able to sit on a ledge it was barely just as wide as my body.
And it was like straight up on one side and then straight down into Lake Jocassee on the other
And after sitting there for most of the day and having all kind of leg cramps I was able to get some really decent shots of those Peregrine's both perching and flying.
And one of those which thrilled me to death at the time ended up being on the cover of our magazine.
Thank you Michael um that brings to mind one other little tidbit.
We as photographers, all of us photographed for so many years the beauty that was South Carolina
In 1989 I was called back into service to fly from Little River South Carolina down to Savannah Georgia
Actually to cover the absolutely horrendous damage caused by Hurricane Hugo.
And when you are so used to seeing and photographing all the beauty it was certainly a very emotional experience to fly from one end of our coast to the other
And see the kind of carnage and destruction that mother made nature can do to us.
So Ted I'm gonna turn it over to you. One thing I think I needed to talk about is the cooperation that we had with law enforcement officers, biologists and all.
That's where we got a lot of our ideas from and knew where to go.
Ted I appreciate it and gentlemen it was so good to reunite here today,
And I certainly hope that some of the viewers will get a little bit of insight into what it was like to be a South Carolina Wildlife magazine photographer.
I know I treasure the memories that we all have.
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We've all been, we went through film, we went through digital, we're still in digital.
But have any of you gotten to the point that you're now taking pictures with your phones? I am.
I did something with my phone the other day I haven't done in a long time. I made a phone call.