Cotton Tale: Century Industry, Century Farm, Century Family

Cotton Tale is an industry, farm, and family documentary headlining the changes in cotton production and agribusiness during 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 of low-country South Carolina.  Family members, multi-generational farm hands, and community testify to the  family's farming heritage and deep-seated values of faith, succession, and family pride.  Also prominent in the story is…

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Photolucida competition finalist … but not Top 50

In August of 2014, I was notified of being selected one of the Top 200 Finalists in the internationally recognized photography advocacy organization, Photolucida, and their  Critical Mass Photography Competition. I was and still am deeply honored. Being the superstitious person that I am (I read my horoscope daily while I am looking over my shoulder), I told no one but waited until today when the Top 5o of the 200 were announced to tell anyone. I…

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A significant event and image from my life …

My mother was the only patient in the ICU of Haywood County Regional Medical Center on Wednesday evening, May 9, 2012.  The Unit was eerily quiet, absent of the usual beeping cadence of  monitors, and that of my mother's - her monitor and I.V.'s disconnected a few hours before.  The sole light burning was the one over the nurses station which cast a diffuse fluorescent glow through their observation window into her private room.  My mother's  life was slipping away as her still warm…

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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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A bowl of cotton soup …

  It is cotton-picking season in the Low-Country of South Carolina and what picks cotton today are not people but spindles ... 3,360 of them to be exact on a six-row John Deere Model 7660 cotton harvester

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