Project: Southern Style

Savannah College of Art and Design
November 6-7

Students explore activities that make Savannah the "Belle of the South."

Whoever you are, wherever you're from, the great citizens of Savannah, Georgia will welcome you with true Southern hospitality as we experienced during our time with students and faculty at the Savannah College of Art & Design. Hip and historic, robust and refined, Savannah is where you'll find amazing architecture, spooky cemeteries and rich history--along with global sophistication, funky nightlife and fabulous food. It's where history resonates into the present day, and where memories are still being made. This is southern living and the assignment students from SCAD gave to themselves -- capturing the beauty and lifestyle of modern day Savannah.

The ambiance of the waterfront is an atmospheric fusion of nineteenth century, old-world charm and twentieth century tourist potpourri. Stony ramps that connect Bay Street with River Street are made of English ballast stones, which gave schooners added stability for their trips from Europe, only to be thrown out and replaced with cotton bales in Georgia.

On the bluff facing the Savannah River are nine blocks of renovated cotton warehouses that house about 80 restaurants, pubs, night spots, hotels, shops, galleries, and boutiques. Adding to the sight-seeing is a working harbor of huge, building-size tug boats and sailing ships that are seen plowing the murky waters of the Savannah River. During the day, families stroll alongside the river, eating ice cream cones and browsing in gift shops. At suppertime, people are seen feasting on seafood and steaks in some of Savannah's best restaurants.

These are some of the places the students elected to photograph. They also captured some of the core, yet withering livelihoods in the area such as "shrimping." Today the shrimp industry has fallen prey to shrimp farms where they are carefully grown to precise, identical sizes and weights and sold to market and restaurants, leaving local fisherman with the task of reinventing themselves and maintain some of distribution of their daily catch. The islands surrounding Savannah-proper safely house these shrimp boats. Today, these protected islands have been preserved and kept much the same as they were many years ago when Blackbeard sailed his ship here and used the islands for a base for his pirated treasure trove.

As with other schools we have visited, the students were anxious to meet with Julieanne to view their images in Lightroom. They were very enthusiastic about what they had photographed and the critique session was met with great enthusiasm and a lot of creative input.