Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This year the annual Brookgreen Gardens Nights of 1000 Candles festival is set up a little differently in that you need to buy your tickets online in advance. This was done to prevent overcrowding and expedite the often rather tedious entrance process. It worked well, but I think they may have perhaps shot themselves a bit in the foot income-wise because it did seem to to reduce the crowd a good bit from previous years. At any rate, I chose 2 December this year, and the night was quite comfortable, not as cold as some years where I could barely feel the camera buttons through the frostbite, nor as warm as one or two years when I didn't need a jacket at all.

There's always a bit that's different or new every year, but this year the changes were fairly modest: I think the only one that really comes to mind is a new field of staked candles on the green space in front of Pegasus. The vintage christmas display did have some new roller coasters on the Lionel display, and they really zipped along!

The festival is running weekends through 18 December, so if you have some spare time, and are in, or can get to, the area, I highly recommend it.

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4 December this year was one of the warmer iterations of Brookgreen Gardens Nights of 1000 Candles, and by that, I mean that I could feel the buttons on my camera without my hands going numb.

As usual, the Gardens were beautifully lit, and there were entertainment tents with jazz, vocal ensembles and rock sounds of the season and wandering bagpipers. My impression is that they are getting a little bolder in color choices for the lights though of course the hundreds of candles, floading candles and luminaries remain.

The festival runs for two more weekends, on 10-12 December and 17-20 December and if you have a chance, I highly reccommend you go.

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I got to Brookgreen a bit later than I had planned this year, and so did not hit all the spots I usually hit, but it was still a very nice evening out in the cold and lights. Actually, the weather was relatively moderate compared to some prior years -- I was able to hold my camera and adjust the controls without my fingers going numb. There is still an official ban on tripods, and I decided this year I wouldn't go for much in the way of "set the camera on something and do a time exposure" shots, so I cranked the ISO way up and took what I got, so I have to admit I've gotten better shots in previous years. I did play around with the in-camera HDR setting, and that's where some of the freaky green-lit exposures come from. Sometimes it did quite a good job of capturing both the lights and normal objects, and sometimes it didn't (I haven't used those spoiled shots here, obviously).

Getting in was a little quicker this year as they did not bring back the suboptimal secondary dirt road route they tried last year, although there was still quite a jam on US-17 (where I witnessed a fender-bender just as I finally got waved through). You still have three more chances to catch the lights this year on 18 December, 19 December and 20 December, and you really should if you are anywhere near the area.

UPDATE 5 December 2023: Update tags and add map icon.

I got to Brookgreen a bit later than I had planned this year, and so did not hit all the spots I usually hit, but it was still a very nice evening out in the cold and lights. Actually, the weather was relatively moderate compared to some prior years -- I was able to hold my camera and adjust the controls without my fingers going numb. There is still an official ban on tripods, and I decided this year I wouldn't go for much in the way of "set the camera on something and do a time exposure" shots, so I cranked the ISO way up and took what I got, so I have to admit I've gotten better shots in previous years. I did play around with the in-camera HDR setting, and that's where some of the freaky green-lit exposures come from. Sometimes it did quite a good job of capturing both the lights and normal objects, and sometimes it didn't (I haven't used those spoiled shots here, obviously).

Getting in was a little quicker this year as they did not bring back the suboptimal secondary dirt road route they tried last year, although there was still quite a jam on US-17 (where I witnessed a fender-bender just as I finally got waved through). You still have three more chances to catch the lights this year on 18 December, 19 December and 20 December, and you really should if you are anywhere near the area.

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"Some Pig!"

This years' was the warmest Nights of 1000 Candles I've ever been to. In past years, there have been times when I have been so cold that I couldn't feel the buttons on the camera, but this year was not just mild: We're talking bikini weather here (though even so attired, you would still have on more clothes than most of the statuary..).

In years past, I have either taken a tripod (now disallowed) or set the camera on something for long time exposures. This year, I just cranked the ISO up to 16000, 32000 and sometimes 64000 to see how things would come out. Obviously the results aren't as pristine as some in the past, but despite all the high-ISO noise, I think you get the general spirit. If you've never gone, well, it's too late for this year, but you should make some plans for next.

UPDATE 5 December 2023: Update post title & tags, add map icon.