A bidding war on a real cotton mom’s wedding dress …

When I was growing up, there was a box that I was never allowed to open.  I knew it to be my mom's wedding dress and that was pretty much that ... until now. My mom passed away in May of 2012, and her instructions to my sister and I in the last days of her life were to "take me home," with home being where she grew up as a child on a cotton farm  in…

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Cotton mom …

Cotton  Mom ... a still from our documentary-in-progress, Cotton Tale .... Cotton Tale is a century family, farm, and industry documentary headlining the changes in cotton production in the last 60 years.  The narrative vehicle for this documentary is the voice of the “last-one-standing” patriarch of a four generation farm family living in the Four Hole Swamp area of low-country South Carolina.  Family members and community will testify to the  family’s farming heritage which is characterized by deep-seated values of…

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Cotton wagon ….

Only sixty years ago, cotton from the field was pulled to the gin in a wagon with wire screen sides.  Today, the "boll buggy" dumps its load into a "module builder" which presses out a loaf of cotton that is hauled to the gin by a 16 wheeler.  An image from our  documentary project, "Cotton Tale."   Will Wofford mans the module builder and Josh Johnson pulls the load with the Houck Farms John Deere 7810.

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What cotton fields see at night ….

This minute and a half multimedia is a composite of motion time lapse sequences used in the documentary, Cotton Tale. Cotton Tale is a century family, farm, and industry documentary headlining the changes in cotton production in the last 60 years. The narrative vehicle for this documentary is the voice of the “last-one-standing” patriarch of a four generation farm family living in the Four Hole Swamp area of low-country South Carolina. Family members and community will…

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Cotton friends … Messrs. Bates Houck, John Deere, and Kitty Lucky

Three fine friends, uniquely dependent upon on each other ... Bates Houck, patriarch for Houck Farms; the John Deere 7660 cotton harvester; and the assuredly "fixed" farm kitty "Lucky" who was not seen in the photograph until after the fact.  His sneek-in presence is so true to his behavior and personality.  This image is part of a portfolio for the in-progress documentary, "Cotton Tale" which will be released in May of 2014.

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Rubber for Cotton

Josh Riley of Cameron, S.C. manages a repair service for farm equipment.  Now is the height of the cotton picking season in the Four Hole Swamp area of Low Country S.C.  Image from the Cotton Tale: A Century Family, Farm, and Industry.  

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