Basketballs and fishhooks aside, the most fun any gadget has ever given America is probably cameras. Remember your first Brownie when you were ten or fourteen?

First, you took a picture of the dog, who wouldn’t do anything but hang his head. Then your 7-year-old brother refused to pose like a monkey hanging from a limb. No matter, the one roll of film, 12 frames, was gone as fast as Man O’War.

But you squeezed out the money for another and you and “the guys” yanked off your shirts and flexed up long, skinny muscles. Girls did “friends forever” poses. With their second roll they giggled constantly while pulling on Mother’s evening gowns. Daddy’s hunting boots, wide lady church hats and ten strings of beads apiece. Click.

George McDaniel, Florence native and retired senior vice president of Orangeburg’s First National Bank (now S.C. Bank and Trust), was 11 or 12 when he got his hands on a Kodak Brownie, and they’re still there, but on a far fancier one. Often he joins local pilot Kurt Von Graff at his field near Cordova and they soar into the wild blue yonder to focus on a port, factory or commercial site to make pictures for its owners.

Flying trip to

photograph

Two years ago, George accepted an offer of the Morgan Construction Company in Spartanburg to photograph three new plant preparations. One was 100 acres near downtown Savannah at the intersection of Interstates 16 and 516. With Kurt flying his Cesna, they made the 95 miles in less than an hour.

“When it came into view, we noticed three very important pieces of property around it,” George says, “the Savannah International Airport on one side, the Hunter Air Force Base on another and Fort Stewart on the other. What an airscape!

“American airports require non-local planes to ask permission before entering their airspace. Savannah’s traffic controller lost no time granting us permission — for not less than 1,000 feet above the site.

“On these trips, I always ask the pilot to orbit the site four or five times while I hurriedly aim and snap away with my digital Nikon D 300. It lets me take hundreds of images without having to reload.

“As you may have observed, digital has taken over and nearly replaced the old film business. It isn’t a film but a computer flash card, a little bigger than a postage stamp which slips into your camera and records all the pictures you want up to 1,000. ... The photos (images) are downloaded from the card into a computer to be viewed. All this can be done at home and with just a little practice, isn’t too difficult.

“For 15 or 20 minutes, Kurt maneuvered into whatever sightings I asked. Then, no time to linger, he headed toward our second site in Jessup, Georgia, where I photographed the big Broadhurst Garbage Landfill (100 acres), managed by Morgan. Gradually being filled by the city, the huge pits looked spanking clean and neat, a number of them already filled, soil-covered and landscaped.

Rolling out

the fire trucks

“Still airborne, we headed to Jedburg, S.C. near Summerville where Morgan was building a South Carolina first, a factory to make fire trucks. Now finished and in full use, it is sending the bright red engines with bells and ladders to stations across the nation.

“We completed the trip in less than four hours.”

Back home, he downloaded the digital images to his computer and edited the size, color, etc.

“I spent hours selecting ten or 12 of each site to be printed and sent to Morgan officials.

“These shoots over the last ten years represent some of my top experiences in photography. But the early days of just plain picture-taking furnished lots of fun too.”

Back in his Florence High School days, George worked with a Busch Pressman Camera that cost $175. Mostly, he made black and whites of groups of friends performing all the shenanigans of his age. In his senior year, he took a job at Blackmon’s Studio, afternoons and weekends, where he mixed the chemicals, developed film in the darkroom, made prints and learned more of the skills of the trade.

Photos from Korea

Down at The Citadel next year, he kept at it, occasionally sending the Florence Morning News pictures of people and events. The Korean War was winding down, but thousands of G.I’s remained there to ensure peace.

Citadel grads were required to attend R.O.T.C. camp for six weeks of training at the end of their junior year. George used this Army pay for another fine camera, an Argus C3. Upon finishing college, he was called to active duty at Fort Bliss, Texas to train and serve two years in artillery units.

For nine months he served endless hours in an anti-aircraft battalion, always standing ready for any enemy attack that might come. His Korea pictures are great!

Back in Florence he went to work for CIT Financial Corporation, which did retail and wholesale financing for Ford and Chrysler dealers.

In his spare time, he earned his pilot’s license at the Florence Regional Airport.

“This made way for a lot of aerial photography for me,” George says. “My father had flown his own plane for years and seeded my flying interest with lots of excursions. A year or two after getting a license, I bought my own Piper Cub.”

Not exactly another hobby but a growing passionate pastime was dating Virginia Bourne from Georgetown, secretary to the personnel director at the International Paper Company.

“When we married in 1956, one good friend offered to take the pictures as his wedding gift. Soon after the honeymoon, we got together to see all the photos. He had taken four.

“Our son, George III, came while we lived in Florence. Transferred to Charleston two years later, I had a full household to move. Nancy, our first daughter came another year later in Orangeburg, after I accepted the job as head of the installment loan department of S.C. Bank and Trust. George III died from an accident while playing when he was ten. Another girl, Leslie, came to us a year later.

“Guess the ages of our three grandchildren today ... 23, 19 and 19 months!

“I stayed with the bank for 23 years, retiring in 1996. All that time I took more pictures. The countless shots of family, friends and fun are my biggest total, but the scenes I captured of and in flying airplanes remain my top favorite.

“After a few years in Orangeburg, I contacted a number of commercial real estate developers who sold large properties and offered to do aerial photography of their shopping centers, plant sites, farm land, or construction. Today I’ve completed dozens.

Through the years, many more such jobs have come along even though I never actually went into a business. I did develop a strong love of filming pictures at the air shows in Camden, Beaufort or Charleston ... all the thrills of Army fighters skimming the ground with a roar, or diving and barely skinning past each other while crossing paths. You can’t take bad pictures of that kind of action.

“Your soul nearly overflows as you aim your camera and record them for everybody to see on TV, in newspapers, libraries.

“What a hobby I’ve had.”

Retired editor and public relations executive Thomas Langford’s column is titled “Some Edisto stories.” Let him know if you have stories to share: 803-534-2097.

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