145th Anniversary of the Battle of Bentonville

I am so excited to finally share this post! A lot of times I get behind on blogging or editing and I don't have time to share stuff I do just for fun. Well! This is a for fun only post:-). If you know me, you probably already know that I am hugely interested in Civil War history. I am fascinated by that time period, mainly because it wasn't all that long ago, and also by the fact that it was American vs. American, and each side saw the other as the villain. It seems so unfathomable now, that we could ever war against another part of our own country, and yet, we did. Although it is a bit romanticized for me as a Southerner, a la "Gone With The Wind" (I was raised on it!), I recognize those four and a half years as some of the most impactful in our Nation's history. It also saw, for pretty much the fist time, the use of photography as a means of documenting war. Photography was still in its infancy. The very first fixed photograph ever, was made around 1826, only 35 years prior to the start of the war. The crude processes, and difficult conditions in which they were making these images, makes them all the more beautiful and fascinating. I won't bore you with any more of my "History of Photography" lesson, except to say that I love Civil War era wet-plate process photographs (especially tintypes and ambrotypes). Continuing with what's relevant... a short while ago, I added going to a Civil War reenactment to my list of things I want to do in my lifetime. So I did some research, found one close by and my sister and I went! Besides experiencing "living" history, my main goal was to somehow photograph what I saw, try to show as little of the modern day as possible, and then edit the pictures to be reminiscent of the photographs of the time period (plus some wear and tear). I was skeptical about actually getting anything good, but I really had fun with it, and was, in the end, very pleased with the results. Enjoy!
(145th Anniversary of the Battle of Bentonville. Largest battle fought in North Carolina and our biggest Reenactment. Four Oaks, NC: March 21, 2010.)

Some portraits. I wish I had been able to get more pictures of soldiers like this one.

I liked him in color:-)




I photographed this guy a couple of times.. I really liked his look.



I didn't think I had any expectations.. but I was surprised by how many women and children were dressed up. It was really neat!





Still Life.


I really thought this looked like a scene from a movie or something. The men marching off to battle.


These next few make the men look like ghosts to me.. and I kinda like that about them.




Spectators.


And now for the actual battle....

Just so you can know what it actually looked like.. without all of the crazy editing!



Favorite.

Union Troops.

Confederate Troops.



After going to this one, I am totally hooked on reenactments! I hoped to go to another battle soon. My sister and I even thought that getting dressed up like Scarlet looked like fun... so who knows what the next set of pictures will be like! :-)