South Carolina, the Heat & Professional Pictures

Sitting here late Sunday night in Columbia, South Carolina enjoying the sounds of the garden around me. No, I am not sitting in the garden, it is still over 85 degrees out there, although much cooler than the 100 or so during the day today. Just sitting in the winter garden off the back of the house here. Surrounded by windows on three sides and a dark jungle feeling just beyond the glass here it feels so different to my home. But just the same, very comforting.After a week of new experiences in the north we came south for the weekend. Week, not too far south but enough for a cultural change. Here there was more family to meet and have visits with and leaving the hills behind us we came to more flatter land and the oppressing heat which has been here for a while already. The people in Columbia are really just friendly folk. Not that I have had too much time to get out of the family grasps, but enough to feel the southern warmth which I expected here. Like people on the highway waving you over to change lanes while they slow down to leave you room. Love the south.But it is hot here. We were at the zoo this morning, planned especially around the weather we went before 10am but had to leave again just after noon as it was just too blistering. The aquarium was one of the most popular exhibits as it is indoors. Most of the other animals were all parked under whatever shade they could find within their confines, trying to keep cool. Yesterday it was 104 and that was just the thermometer, not including the humidity. Tough stuff. It is not often where we travel to Florida expecting it to be cooler there. It seems to be that case this time. Strange.Tonight I had to finally pick out my final pics from the photo-shooting last week. I am back on 'net' and needed to do this. There were almost 400 photos and I needed to cook it down to 8 or so for the post-work to be done to them before sending them off to New York for inclusion in the video. I needed some outside help with this final task as they all looked "ok" to me. It is heard for me to objectively look at pictures of myself and pick out the good from the bad, I see bad in all of them. Even when I also see that the pictures are really great as well. It is just "me" in them which makes it hard. So, Chris and I sat together just a while ago and I had her do the "is this one, or this one" better kind of exercise with me. I had already sorted it down to the final 40 or so and needed that last input. She is good, but also too good. Ones I thought were pretty nice were not given a second thought. Others were. I had done all I objectively could and followed her lead. In the end there are 8 pictures of 4 scenes ready for post work. Back to the photographer now.Tomorrow is off to Florida and the great cool down. Yeah! It will be a long day in the car. Actually I really have no idea how long it will be. Some say 6 others say closer to 8 hours of driving time. I really am not too concerned. Der Weg ist der Ziel, is the motto. it will be a nice day spent together. I will update later how long it actually took.