Trees are nature's paintbrushes; dipped into autumn's palette and set upon a ridge, they drip with color. Nature throws one final fling before settling in for winter. As the sun sets earlier and temperatures drop, summer green gives way to shades of red, orange and gold.

"Table Rock is a unique spot to photograph a mountain lake," says Robert. "This photo was taken in front of the lodge at Table Rock State Park (see front cover). Geographically, I was on top of a bowl. I don't know of another spot in the state where you can look down on a lake with hills rising up on the other side. With the light coming from behind the distant trees, the photograph gives a sense of distance and appreciation for fall colors.

The spartina-fringed waters of this estuary near Hunting Island State Park nurture the sea's delicacies. Throughout the year the colors of the Earth live here; their organic hues speak of an abundance of life for estuaries and their rich detritus anchors the sea's food chain, providing a rich bounty for South Carolina's saltwater sportsmen and women.

This natural heritage preserve managed by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources provides a classic example of the Carolina bay phenomenon. Aligned along a northwest-southeast axis, Carolina bays' long axes run parallel, and viewed from flight, these elliptical landforms all point in the same direction. In the dry season, Cathedral Bay's grasses and sedges soften the bay's interior and lie like fleece at the base of buttressed cypress.

"This image looks like a simple photo but it was not," says Robert. "About thirty minutes before sunrise I found a great spot and waited for the sun to come up. The fog wasn't planned, but what a great help it was to the photo. I probably wouldn't have gotten a photo I'd have liked without the fog. The fog gave depth to the photo and mood to the river. When the sun broke through the trees like a spotlight, it sealed the deal for a memorable photo. You could say luck played a ninety-percent role in making this photo. I was in the right place at the right time that morning."

Though this photograph did not make the final cut for Reflections, Volume 2, the caption did, accompanying an alternate image. Milliken transformed its 650-acre headquarters from a peach orchard into a horticultural center. The Milliken Arboretum earns national accolades as a significant corporate program that encourages knowledge of and appreciation for trees and how they improve the quality of life. Says Robert about this painting-like shot, "South Carolina happens to be the place I love to photograph most. Each photo needs an element that pleases the reader and I use what the situation gives me. Most of the time it's unique lighting, something unusual or weather. That was the case with this one. As fog smoothed the color in the trees, a steady rain soaked my clothing. I didn't care about getting wet or cold when I saw what my camera was capturing."

Cresting, rolling ridges stretch to the horizon like some green-blue sea. The ridges are blue due to the gases trees give off. Many plants produce isoprene, a common odorless organic compound. It's a bit more romantic, and certainly less clinical, to imagine the blue haze comes from campfires.

The Edisto sings its river song as it swirls and babbles beneath moss-draped live oaks, bald cypress and water tupelo. The longest and largest river system within South Carolina, the Edisto's serpentine route graces ten counties. Wandering 206 miles from underground springs in Saluda and Edgefield counties to the Atlantic Ocean at Edisto Beach, it's also America's longest free-running blackwater river.

When it was built in 1876, this, the third lighthouse on this site, stood on solid ground, 1,200 feet from the sea. Jetties built in 1889 to protect the shipping lanes of Charleston Harbor altered the currents, rapidly eroding Morris Island, and today the lighthouse stands 300 yards off Folly Beach. In 1962 the Charleston Lighthouse, located on Sullivan's Island, replaced the decommissioned Morris Island Lighthouse. Save the Light Inc. is a nonprofit organization fighting to save the lighthouse from the sea.

U.S. Highway 21 runs straight as an arrow between Ridgeway and Great Falls. In this image taken along this desolate stretch, there are no billboards, just woods and a lonely car bound for Great Falls. Highway 21 was once a major north-south passage. Then Interstate 77 arrived. From its southern terminus at Hunting Island, this ribbon of asphalt runs 233.2 miles to Rock Hill, where it merges with the interstate outside Charlotte, North Carolina.

Plantation oaks' gnarled limbs, Spanish moss and resurrection ferns form the elements of a classic Lowcountry vista. This picturesque setting is a time tunnel into the past... dirt roads are fading away. A washboard lane makes a car skitter about and sooner or later potholes will develop. Sufficient reason to lay down asphalt, I suppose, but what beauty we lose. Edisto Island has its share of lovely dirt roads still, and there's poetry in this sandy lane softened by island mists. When a cloud comes up, the first large drops will spatter against the dirt releasing a smell that's the fragrance of life itself.

Robert and I decided not to submit this photo for Reflections, Volume 2. Even though we risked life and limb to get it, we'd already covered these beautiful lilies in the first book. Look downstream and you can just see the haze from the prescribed burn that nearly trapped us on the riverbank. Here's what we would've written for the cutline: "Hymenocallis coronaria is native to large streams in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. These southern beauties grow where rocky shoals and bedrock outcrops provide solid anchor for the delicate plants. They peak from mid-May to mid-June."

You won't find a Hollywood epic about the South that doesn't show live oaks drenched in Spanish moss, and Charleston's Angel Oak has surely seen its share of Spanish moss, as have Native Americans, explorers, colonists and others who have stood in the great tree's shadow across the centuries and marveled at a plant for which they had no name. The South's image is forever framed by oaks and cypress draped in moss, and Angel Oak is the star of stars.