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2nd Edition Book Release
2nd Edition Book Release
What It Means To Be Here
Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton,
The Lowcountry and Beyond.
The lush landscape, the many waterways both large and small, the slant of the sun, and the overabundance of nature are some of the powerful lures that draw folks to the South and particularly the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
Photographer Marge Agin is one of those “folks.” In the pages of What It Means To Be Here, you will experience images that will resonate with you and underscore the beauty and character of this much beloved area.
To capture the heartbeat of an area, its community, its places and people is at the center of Marge Agin’s photography. To share within the pages of What It Means To Be Here those quiet walks in the Lowcountry woods of Palmetto Bluff, to navigate the waters of our beloved May River and to celebrate all that Bluffton has to offer with its charm, quirkiness and small town sensibilities will bring you joy as you turn the pages. See through Marge’s lens as she travels beyond her beloved Lowcountry in search of authentic images of today’s South.
So get comfortable, feel the breeze and enjoy What It Means To Be Here, Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, The Lowcountry and Beyond.
“Photography has always been my passion. My photographs are unique because what I see through the camera is just a first step. When you look at my photographs, you are looking at them, through the lens of my imagination.”
About the Author: Marge Agin has traveled the world taking photographs and now calls Bluffton, SC and the Lowcountry her home. Originally from California, she is fascinated by the wildlife, history, charm and lifestyle of the area. Using her camera to take the original photographs, Marge then enhances them with modern techniques, combining both her photographic knowledge and her artistic talent to produce strong, bright images evoking the feelings she has for her environment.
What It Means To Be Here will be available in area stores and from www.starbooks.biz.
This is the second edition of Marge Agin’s third book. Her first book, Palmetto Bluff was followed by Bluffton, Changing Tides. This book is followed by Bluffton State of Mind for a total of 4 books.
On the Cover
The journey had taken me through miles and miles of the South. It included multiple trips into Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky,Alabama, and Mississippi. In each state I sought out towns that would exemplify the essence of small town USA. I always started and ended in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, the place I live and love. In each and every town I spoke to the locals about their lifestyle and asked them how life was going for them. Needless to say the answers varied from health issues to the economy, but all agreed that they were pleased to be in these small rural areas.
My companions on these trips were my husband, 2 Canon DSLR cameras and an assortment of lens, from wide angle to telephoto. I am pleased to report we only had one casualty while traveling so many miles and constantly using the equipment in the rain, dirt, dust and hot sun. On one very hot day while trying to get the perfect photo of a beautiful old barn, the wide-angle zoom lens was run over by a car, my car to be exact, when I forgot I had laid it down in the shade in front of the car. Miracle of miracles the camera survived. I continued to take photographs of anything and everything that presented itself throughout our travels.
Needless to say I will always remember this specific image!
On the Creative Edge
On the Creative Edge
PHOTOGRAPHER MARGE AGIN: ON THE CREATIVE EDGE
Story by Carolyn Males, Local Life Magazine
In February 1982 National Geographic infamously moved the Great Pyramids of Giza, nudging two closer together for a more pleasing cover image. Controversy raged and apologies ensued. Altering a photograph was deemed a photojournalism no-no.
Fine art photographer Marge Agin works under no such constraints. And while she’s yet to reposition an Egyptian icon, she’s unapologetic about using digital tools to alter perspective, redirect our focus, and imbue reality with her own creative edge. “I’m not shooting in journalistic mode anymore,” says the Palmetto Bluff resident. “My work is more painterly.”
Indeed. Like a painter she’ll remove a construction crane from an image she’s shot of the Holy Temple Church in Yemassee and tidy up the bushes along the side of the old two-story building for an evocative image of rural life she’s titled “Faith Express.” Or she’ll erase the background from a huge close-up of a wood stork and sharpen the details of its eye and feathers so that you’ll feel as if you can touch him with your fingertips.
A petite woman, Agin totes two pro Canon EOS cameras equipped with fast heavy lenses. She takes aim at “anything in front of me that happens to interest me.” Her first click is always on automatic in raw image format. Her philosophy? “Just get the shot.” Then she brack-ets exposures and plays around with settings. “I’m a great believer in moving the dials.” She doesn’t use flash and rarely carts a tripod except when she’s shooting birds with her massive 600mm lens.
On her quest for interesting subjects, she’ll lie prone on the deck of a boat, her wide angle lens tilted up to catch a shrimper’s net mid-fling. Or she’ll drape herself over a fence to capture a rustic red barn in a Kentucky field. For one of her photographic books, What It Means to Be Here, she and her husband, Norm, drove through tiny Southern towns and hung out in soda shops, chatting up locals who suggested spots to explore with her camera.
Then it’s back to her “digital darkroom,” a Mac computer loaded with Photoshop. Here, she explains, is where the magic happens. “I never know what the image will be until I get into it. It’s a process of discovery.” She is fearless as she experiments with filters and layers, saturating or changing colors, adding or subtracting texture, removing or replacing backgrounds, blurring or sharpening. Finishing a single image can take a day, month or more. Then she prints them up large scale.
When asked how many steps she takes to create a particular photo, she answers with a shrug. “I don’t duplicate a process so each image is an experiment––much like painters do.”
For example, while in New Orleans a trombone player in the French Quarter caught her eye. In the original shot, he’s flanked by a window, a vertical pole, and a bicycle. As a journalistic photo it’s good but when she painstakingly erased the background, bumped up the texture of the musician’s skin, and toned down the overall color, she transformed it into a great picture. With the peripheral distractions removed, our gaze now focuses on the man and his horn and catches details like metallic reflections and the tape he’d wrapped on the slide.
Ditto for the Kentucky barn photo. Agin concedes that the original she took was a nice picture of a red barn but nothing special — at least not yet. In fact, everyone in her car was moaning, “Do we have to wait while you take that?” Once home, she wiped out the mundane background, replacing it with a misty gray morning sky, and then kicked up the red of the wood planks for a striking image of a lost way of life.
When asked for advice, Agin offers up her own philosophy. “You can really have fun with photography. You don’t have to be so serious. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. How many times have you had a picture that was under-exposed or overexposed that you got it home and said ‘oh, that’s pretty good? I can do something with it.’” She smiles. “It happens all the time.”
New Book Release
NEW BOOK RELEASE
Bluffton State of Mind
Celebrating Bluffton, the Lowcountry, and Palmetto Bluff
By Marge Agin
With Essays by Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka, Emmett McCracken, Courtney Hampson and Amber Kuehn with illustrations by Doug Corkern
Bluffton, April 2018 – Starbooks and Lydia Inglett Publishing announces the release of a new coffee table gift book, Bluffton State of Mind by Lowcountry photographer Marge Agin.
What is the Bluffton State of Mind? Although difficult to articulate, we know it when we see it. From oyster shuckers at The Bluffton Oyster Company to alligators, echos of long ago buildings, marshes and the May River, Marge Agin’s photographic art makes a bold statement for the Bluffton state of mind.
Essays from Mayor Lisa Sulka, Emmett McCracken, Courtney Hampson and Amber Kuehn, enhance the collection of visually entertaining and culturally vibrant portraits of Bluffton and the Lowcountry. This is Agin’s fourth book about the area.
Special features of this unique coffee table book include a cover that looks and feels like antique, weathered boards and a gallery section with separate tipped-on photographic images of Agin’s new work.
Bluffton State of Mind will be available in area stores and at Mayfest, Saturday, May 12, 2018 in downtown Bluffton, and from www.starbooks.biz and www.margeaginphotography.com
“Marge Agin visually expresses the exuberance of the Bluffton area and the Lowcountry in her art photography. Fresh, lively and colorful, this new book captures the spirit of the “Bluffton State of Mind” for all to enjoy.”
– Lydia Inglett, founder and publisher, Starbooks
About the Author: Marge Agin has traveled the world taking photographs and now calls Bluffton, SC and the Lowcountry her home. Originally from California, she is fascinated by the wildlife, history, charm and lifestyle of the area. Using her camera to take the original photographs, Marge then enhances them with modern techniques, combining both her photographic knowledge and her artistic talent to produce strong, bright images evoking the feelings she has for her environment. www.margeaginphotography.com
REVIEW - Hilton Head Monthly
Local Reads of the Lowcountry
BY AMY COYNE BREDESON
“BLUFFTON STATE OF MIND” — BY MARGE AGIN
A photographer for more than 40 years, Marge Agin started out shooting weddings and portraits. But she really wanted to work in fine art photography.
Now she does. Her work can be seen at Four Corners Fine Art & Framing in Old Town Bluffton. It can also be found in her book, “Bluffton State of Mind.”
The collection of images tells the story of the historic town on the May River. It is filled with edited photos of the area’s landscape and wildlife, as well as shrimp boats, historic buildings, even a river baptism at The Church of the Cross.
“Bluffton State of Mind,” Agin’s fourth book about the area, also features sketches by Doug Corkern and essays by former Bluffton Mayor Emmett McCracken, current Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka, Palmetto Bluff vice president of marketing Courtney Hampson, and Spartina Marine Education Charters owner and operator Amber Kuehn.
“It’s very heartfelt,” Agin said. “It has the feel and the vibe of what Bluffton is. I’m somewhat of a newcomer to the area, and I just think it’s the greatest place ever.”
Agin got the idea for the book while driving past well-known Bluffton Realtor Martha Crapse’s funeral procession as it was going in the opposite direction.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, all those great stories are just going to die if someone doesn’t do something,’” Agin said. “Here’s this little community that’s been so closely knit, but it’s starting to grow now, but it’s still holding onto its values … It is pretty special because these places are disappearing.”
The book can be found at various stores in Bluffton, as well as online at www.starbooks.biz and www.margeaginphotography.com.
“PARADISE: MEMORIES OF HILTON HEAD IN THE EARLY DAYS” — BY NELLE SMITH AND ORA ELLIOTT SMITH
The day John Gettys Smith moved his family to Hilton Head Island in 1963, he began writing in a journal to preserve the history of his new community.
He and his wife, Nelle, had moved from York to the island with their three young children. John had accepted a job doing public relations for Sea Pines and called it “the chance of a lifetime.” Nelle opened the island’s first gift shop, Nell’s Harbour Shop in Harbour Town, in 1971.
Years later, Nelle promised her husband that she would finish his memoirs and write her own. She kept that promise; she and the couple’s daughter, Ora Elliott Smith, have turned John’s journals into a book.
“Paradise: Memories of Hilton Head in the Early Days” includes stories about John’s job interviews with Charles Fraser, his efforts to start a school on the south end of the island, and his marketing plans for golf and tennis.
In the book’s foreword, Nelle wrote, “The island’s history must be told, and our family was blessed to have lived it.”
Nelle said there were no banks, doctors or even a library on Hilton Head when her family arrived.
“My husband was the one who put Hilton Head on the map because he was the public relations director for Charles Fraser,” she said. “He knew we were making history.”
Nelle said John had to think of ways to bring people to Hilton Head. For five years, he was the chairman of the first Heritage golf tournament. He was also the first chairman of the World Championship Tennis tournament on the island.
In 1996, Nelle and John moved to Beaufort. John died in 2009. Nelle works part-time at Lulu Burgess in Beaufort, while her daughter owns an errand service company called Beck and Call.
The book can be found at several area stores, including By Hand, Ink; Grayco; Pretty Papers & Gifts; The Greenery; the Shop at the Top at the Harbour Town Lighthouse; Nell’s Harbour Shop and J. Banks Design.
“STILL BEFORE THE DAWN”— BY JODY BENNETT REICHEL WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LUCY MCTIER
Jody Bennett Reichel’s book “Still Before the Dawn” was meant to comfort others. But the author said it has brought a tremendous amount of peace to her own life, especially after seeing how it affected others.
The longtime Hilton Head Island resident began writing poetry several years ago and released the book of inspirational poems in 2016. Since then, thousands of copies have sold, and stores have had to reorder again and again. The poems have helped many people through some of the most trying times of their lives, Reichel said: She receives an email or text four or five times a week from a reader inspired by her work.
When her sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2017, Reichel gave her a copy of the book and her sister brought it to infusion treatments. She ended up sharing it with other patients, and today the book can be found in several cancer centers for patients to read during treatments.
“If I can touch just one person,” Reichel said, “that’s my whole purpose.”
The book includes Bible verses, art and poetry related to various topics, from adversity to friendship, marriage and worship. Reichel’s words are complemented by the watercolor illustrations of Georgia artist Lucy McTier.
McTier was inspired by items around Reichel’s house that are dear to her.
“I did a lot of seashells because Jody loves the beach, and she wanted that to be an integral part of the work,” McTier said. “It was fun.”
McTier’s work can be seen in several galleries and is in more than 350 public and private collections.
“I have been amazed at what God has done,” Reichel said. “And I pray that it continues to help others and be used in their lives for years to come.”
The book can be found at most local gift shops in Bluffton and Hilton Head and online at www.jodyreichel.com and www.starbooks.biz. For more illustrations by McTier, go to www.mctierart.com.
See original article at HiltonHeadMonthly.com.
Order Now!
Welcome to Bluffton, Palmetto Bluff and the Lowcountry – concert row seating to the best show on earth!
Spartina grass, pluff mud, cast nets, no-see-ums, dolphin, shrimp, ’gators, and loggerheads. Sippin’ on the sand bar and evening marsh glow. A thousand different sunsets and a million more sunrises.
Here, water and sky meet to make a masterpiece.
REVIEW - The Island Packet
Is Boom Town Bluffton still a 'state of mind'?
Before there was Bluffton, there was Bluffton.
And that’s going to help if we ever recover from the Bluffton explosion.
Bluffton thankfully has an old soul. It’s older than any of us, unless you are as old as the May River.
The river is Bluffton’s soul.
“She is part of our subconscious,” said Emmett McCracken.
He wrote that in a new coffee-table book from Bluffton photographer Marge Agin, called “Bluffton State of Mind.”
I can “heah” the words drifting from Emmett’s little smirk like a reed in the “rivah” on flood tide.
He tells in this book about his grandfather who filled a Mason jar with May River water whenever he left town and would sponge it on his eyes at the dawn of each day away. “Medical science remains silent on this specific treatment but it seems pretty sound to a Blufftonian,” he writes.
Emmett tells how there are some 20,000 Blufftonians now, while it was 600 in his youth. And with a median age of 33, there’s something frisky about this new Bluffton explosion from one square mile to 54.
Bluffton bumper stickers of old proudly stated: “Bluffton is a State of Mind.” I’ve joked that Bluffton has since swerved into a “state of confusion.” It’s the kind of thing I mutter in the blazing asphalt parking lot of Bluffton’s new Sam’s Club, which itself is larger than one square mile.
But then I can walk into Scott’s Market, also pictured in the book, where I used to get perfect breakfast sausage from the proprietor’s grandfather. And it’s like having the waters of the May River sponged over my eyes.
This weekend, Bluffton celebrates several milestones, like oyster reefs lining the pluff mud.
On Saturday, the Bluffton Village Festival, or MayFest, will fill Calhoun Street with booths and people, arts and crafts, food and music for the 40th time on the Saturday before Mother’s Day.
People think its pie-eating contest helps give Bluffton that small-town feel.
But the Ugly Dog Contest is the true link to Bluffton’s soul.
All I can say is, long live the Ugly Dog Contest. Maybe that should be a bumper sticker.
Also, we’re marking the 30th anniversary of the Bluffton Rotary Club, which runs the festival. It may be better known for the annual oyster roast it throws at the May River Oyster Factory Park, on the banks of the May River. It usually falls in that two-week cold snap we call winter.
And it was 40 years ago that Babbie Guscio opened the creaky doors of The Store on Calhoun Street, filled with a menagerie of oddities. You can’t put a price tag on the quirk and quack this gave to a street that would become a tourist destination in a village that thumbed its nose at Hilton Head Island and welcomed eccentrics like schools of mullet.
The photo book, with illustrations by Doug Corkern, shows both Bluffton’s old soul and its new heart.
Is Bluffton still a “state of mind”?
It depends on where you look.
And whether your eyes have been sponged with the salty waters of the May River.
See original article at IslandPacket.com.
Order Now!
Welcome to Bluffton, Palmetto Bluff and the Lowcountry – concert row seating to the best show on earth!
Spartina grass, pluff mud, cast nets, no-see-ums, dolphin, shrimp, ’gators, and loggerheads. Sippin’ on the sand bar and evening marsh glow. A thousand different sunsets and a million more sunrises.
Here, water and sky meet to make a masterpiece.
REVIEW - The Breeze
Local Photographer Marge Agin Celebrates Home in Her Latest Book
Check out this months issue of the Bluffton Breeze which features the extremely talented Lowcountry Photographer Marge Agin who is also the Author of the visually stunning new gift book Bluffton State of Mind.
Marge will be on hand to personally scribe your books at the Bluffton Mayfest this weekend Saturday, May 12th 10am-5pm. Don’t miss this opportunity! We look forward to seeing you there!
View the entire issue and original article (pgs. 18-21) in The Breeze here.
Order Now!
Welcome to Bluffton, Palmetto Bluff and the Lowcountry – concert row seating to the best show on earth!
Spartina grass, pluff mud, cast nets, no-see-ums, dolphin, shrimp, ’gators, and loggerheads. Sippin’ on the sand bar and evening marsh glow. A thousand different sunsets and a million more sunrises.
Here, water and sky meet to make a masterpiece.
Bluffton photographer launches, signs copies of third book
blog
The breathtaking scenery of the Lowcountry has been captured for years by Bluffton photographer Marge Agin, who launched her third book collection of photographs Thursday.
During an event at her Palmetto Bluff home, Agin signed copies of “What It Means To Be Here: Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, The Lowcountry and Beyond.”
The 152-page book features 207 of Agin’s original photographs from around the Lowcountry and 12 photographs that can be converted to aerial videos by the reader using a smartphone application.
Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka and Palmetto Bluff marketing director Courtney Hampson contributed essays to the book and read excerpts Thursday. Lowcountry native and marine biologist Amber Kuehn wrote prose for the book and Bluffton firefighter and photographer Jeff Kuehn contributed the bonus aerial videos.
Bluffton chef Ryan McCarthy catered the event, using a menu inspired by the book, including shrimp, oysters, catfish, sweet tea, lemonade, RC Cola and Moon Pies, among other foods.
The event was held under a tent near Agin’s home and featured live entertainment.
Agin said she would donate 40 percent of the book sales Thursday to the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy, a nonprofit that works to protect the development’s environment.
The book is available for purchase at www.starbooks.biz.
Original Article posted on blufftontoday.com by Scott Thompson
Photos Through the Lens of a Painter's Eye: Bluffton – Changing Tides
Photos Through the Lens of a Painter's Eye:
Bluffton – Changing Tides
“I’ve never felt as comfortable, as soon, anywhere else. This is a completely welcoming society.” Fine art photographer Marge Agin put it this way when asked what inspired her new book, Bluffton – Changing Tides.
Life itself is so poetic that artists can just barely keep up. So it’s practical, in a way, that to share Bluffton in a book Marge created photos that look like paintings. Once thought to be a breakthrough in realism, photography now is a medium with as many possibilities as oil or watercolor, as many moods as impressionism, as many textures as brushstrokes.
Marge called on all that versatility to explore Bluffton, and her work comes as close to the famous “state of mind” here as anything ever did without breathing. Changing Tides is fresh, immediate, true to the moment – – and yet also faithful to the molasses-paced sense of time, reflection, perspective and repose that you sense when you walk in Old Town Bluffton.
Photos were just the starting point. Working in digital layers Marge used nearly 20 years of experience in the program, Photoshop, to breathe life into the photographs. Lighting, color saturation, value, texture, all these elements are up for grabs in the digital world, to the artist who knows how to work with them. Marge, it seems, always saw technology as an instrument and an ally. For Changing Tides, each photo was a different case. “There’s much variation in how much manipulation is done. There is no ‘system.’” Marge says the work depends on, “Where do I want the eye to be?”
by Marge Agin
But her account of working in the digital layers overlooks a fact that leaps out from every shot. She has the eye of a painter. What Marge puts inside the frame, and where it’s located, reveals a sense from centuries before the camera, much less the computer.There is an uncanny “rightness” about each of the photos in the way they say Bluffton.
Words behind the pictures were important inspiration, too. Third-generation Blufftonian Emmett McCracken wrote the foreword that serves as Marge Agin’s touchstone. “Emmett’s preface set the tone for the book. He was more instrumental than he thinks he was.” True of so many projects Emmett has nurtured in this town he describes as close to Heaven.
by Marge Agin
Joan Heyward contributed quotes and brief writings by the late Thomas G. Heyward, the emblematic Blufftonian whose line in the Lowcountry went back to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Tommy Heyward’s love of Bluffton was expressed as colorfully over the years as anyone ever achieved, and many of those thoughts are shared on the pages of Changing Tides, thanks to Joan.
Editor Charlene Gardner, of Four Corners Gallery in Bluffton, pulled the book together and produced a clear, beautiful, ideal volume to contain these images, words and feelings. Her talent for knowing how a particular work is best presented shows here on every page, cover-to-cover, outside and in. Bluffton – Changing Tides emerges as more agile than a “coffee table book,” yet too big to be overlooked – a perfect canvas for these images.
by Marge Agin
For a place near you to buy Bluffton – Changing Tides, just ring up the editor, Charlene Gardner at Four Corners Gallery 843-757-8185. That’s the way they’d do it in Bluffton.You can buy a copy if you wish at book stores and cool places all over Bluffton and Hilton Head Island, from Booksalicious in the Bluffton Promenade, to Barnes and Noble on the Island. At Gigi’s, The Store and Eggs ‘n’ Tricities on Calhoun Street. Decorators dig the book so much that it’s available at J. Banks Design on Hilton Head.
Original Article posted on hiltonheadisland.org by Micheal Weaver