2011 was an interesting year, with a lot of changes. The collection of images in the gallery below is the best way for me to share that. I’ve been putting together galleries of my favorite images for the past seven years, and this gallery looks completely different than any other gallery I have shared before, and that excites me beyond belief for the potential to grow even more in 2012. I hope you enjoy looking through this gallery as much as I enjoyed putting it together.  I can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store for us.

-Brett

(click “more” to see the full gallery after the jump)

Last week flashnick visuals, llc had a quick trip to the “Music City” Nashville, Tennessee.  While we were there we decided to take in the sights, and spent some time at Centennial Park which is located on West End and 25th Avenue North, the 132-acre features: the iconic Parthenon.  The Parthenon was originally built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition as a replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

We are now back home in Columbia South Carolina, and with the 25th Annual Greek Festival kicking off tomorrow we thought you might like to see a little slice of Greece that is just a few hours away by car (or a 45-minute flight on South West Airlines from GSP airport).

More photos and stories from our quick visit to Nashville after the jump.

While we were searching out some adventures (and trying to find a good place to catch the Georgia v. South Carolina football game), we also came across the closing weekend of the Warhol Live exhibit at the FRIST Center for the Visual Arts.  If you ever find yourself in Nashville, the FRIST is a must visit.

Here’s more on the exhibit from the FRIST’s website.

Over the course of his meteoric career, Andy Warhol (1928–1987) used the medium of music to transform himself from fan to record album designer, producer, celebrity night-clubber and rock impresario. Warhol Live presents a comprehensive exploration of the artist’s work as experienced through the lens of music and dance. This exhibition juxtaposes major pieces (Elvis, Marilyn, Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, the Self-portraits and the Campbell’s Soup Cans) with lesser-known works inspired by music and the performing arts (album covers, illustrations, photos and Polaroids), along with films and sound recordings, which provide a visual and aural score to Warhol’s extraordinary work and life. The exhibition includes nearly 300 works, including objects and documents from the artist’s personal archives.

A few “illegal” snapshots in the gallery below.

It was pretty amazing to see the work of Andy Warhol (which we are huge fans of) up close and personal.  The exhibit wasn’t just paintings, but also included re-creations of an Exploding Plastic Inevitable installation with the Velvet Underground, 16mm films, screen tests for the Velvet Underground, and some original Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photographs of Liza Minnelli, The Rolling Stones, Grace Jones and many others, along with some of his original album designs.

As huge photo geeks it was pretty amazing seeing some of these Polaroids up close and personal, as they were the foundation for some of his most famous pieces.  By far one of the coolest things in our photo geek minds was the ANDY WHARHOL embossing on each of them (got our wheels turning about the re-launch of our print collections coming pretty soon). It is much more understated and way cooler than today’s digital watermarking.

We were pretty inspired after leaving the exhibit, and that feeling is still with us.  So on that note, as we head out to create, we’ll leave you with this quote from Sir Isaac Newton “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The view from the dock at Charles house on Mosquito Creek, near Bennetts Point, SC.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend some time on the coast at one of my favorite places in the world, my friend Charles’ river house on Fenwick Island.  The best thing about Fenwick is that it is private, and with the exception of about 5 houses which are all owned by members of the Baldwin family, it is completely un-spoiled by the meddling of man.  Wild, un-touched, and completely cut off, this is the perfect place for me to get back in touch with my personal vision, explore, and have an adventure fishing off-shore, and have deep philosophical discussions with others much wiser than I.

The sun sets over Mosquito Creek on Fenwick Island, near Bennetts Point, SC.

Having the ability to create and share images like these, from places that most of the world will never see, and adventures that most will never have, has become one of the forces that drives my photography in recent months.  At one point in time, I had thought it was about just telling the stories of the people which inhabited these places, however, as I have seen so many places around me become over developed, mistreated, and forgotten my goals as a photographer have shifted.  With that thought, I have created the Coastal Print Collection over on my digital archive, and I invite everyeone to take a moment, and flip through the collection of images that are there already, and will be growing in the coming months.

Sunrise over Bennetts Point in Green Pond, SC, on Sunday, May 31, 2009.

Prepping the boat for off-shore fishing, as the sun rises over Bennetts Point in Green Pond, SC, on Sunday, May 31, 2009.

A Palmetto and Live Oak trees draped with Spanish Moss are silhouetted by the first light in the sky, as the sun rises over Bennetts Point in Green Pond, SC, on Sunday, May 31, 2009.

Finally, if you have a place that which is holds a special place in your heart, with natural beauty that may be in danger of disappearing all too soon, that you think I should visit, photograph, and spend some time exploring, let me know.  If I make my way there a signed print from what I find, could be on its way to you.

Lately I’ve been taking my job a little to seriously, and it is becoming something I do to have an income, instead of something I love to do. But then again lately I’ve been taking life a little to seriously. I suppose that is the curse of making something that you love to do your career. In some ways its inevitable to just take something lightly as you get older, because you begin to realize that you need to be able to make a car payment, rent, insurance, food, etc… But when you worry about all of that stuff you tend to forget why you really started doing this in the first place. Perhaps its just time to stop taking everything so seriously, and start having fun again. Maybe then things will just fall into place. Who knows how everything will work out in the long run, and if we did know that… what would be the fun in living life. Its time to get up off of the couch and go explore the world, have some fun, and see what happens. Its time to take the point and shoot out, like I did at the beach the other day, because its more about the journey than the resullts. In that moment when I wasn’t thinking about shutter speeds, f-stops, and iso, so I get to remember the sunrise, instead of how I photographed the sunrise. I think the line from the movie is “Don’t take life to seriously, you’ll never get out alive.”

Peace