Rodger Painter – South Carolina Picture Project

1. SCIWAY: Where do you live in South Carolina? Have you lived here your whole life?
   
   Rodger Painter: I live in the upstate in Gaffney, where I have spent most of my life except for some early years in Florida.
   
   

   Cherokee Sunset		Gaffney Peachoid

   
   
   
2. SCIWAY: How long have you been taking pictures and what got you started? Was it a family member, a beautiful photograph, or ... ?
   
   Rodger: I have been taking pictures since my childhood. Nothing in particular got me started. I found I just have an innate love of photography. I am a big fan of natural light and scenes which are natural and unposed.
   
   
3. SCIWAY: As your photography has led you around the state, what has been the most unusual scene you have photographed? Further, what has been your most beautiful photograph?
   
   Rodger: Most unusual scene? That's a tough one. Our state is filled with wonderful scenes enough to keep any photographer busy. Usually, the scenes in my pictures are really quite ordinary. My interest has been in photographing ordinary scenes, which a person might see everyday but seldom take time to notice. If that person pauses for a moment, looks at a scene in my picture and thinks, "Wow! I never paid attention to that before," then I feel my picture is a success.
   
   Most beautiful photograph? I have many favorites. My most beautiful photograph, in my eye, usually is the one that I just finished taking.
   
   

   Battle of Cowpens		Autumn Reflections

   
   
   
4. SCIWAY: What is your favorite place in the state to go take pictures?
   

   Rodger: Every area of our state has its own special and unique photogenic qualities, whether it be our mountains, beaches, forests, wetlands, parks, communties, countrysides or my own back yard. I tend to see everything through the viewfinder of my mind's eye.
   

5. SCIWAY: If you were showing one photograph from our state to someone who had never been here, what would it be of? In other words, what image best represents our state?
   

   Rodger: Nothing comes to mind. Our state is much too diverse to contain in just one representative photograph.
   

   Palmetto Moon		Cowpens

   
   
   
6. SCIWAY: Please tell us anything else you would like people to know about you.
   

   Rodger: It is gratifying if someone else enjoys looking at my photographs as much as I enjoy taking them. I know that I didn't create the scene in my picture, I only captured a fleeting moment of it – a moment which can be held and cherished for awhile within a photograph. The scene will become a totally new one the next moment or the next day, awaiting to be photographed again.