Introduction
Welcome to my summary of our photography adventure to The Nut House! Like most of our adventures, there's a bit of a back story on the how's and why's associated with the trip. The story of our Nut House adventure started about a year beforehand when one of my favorite photography instructors, Matt Kloskowski (aka MattK for obvious reasons), published a course on bird photography. I'd been following Matt for many years, utilizing his Photoshop books and photography courses back when he was primarily a landscape photographer. I was thrilled when he changed his focus to bird photography because it was just about the same time we were beginning to spend more time photographing birds. His course was great, as expected, and at the end of the course Matt listed some of his favorite spots to photograph birds. One of them was Carl Ackerman's backyard bird paradise called The Nut House. After checking it out we decided it would be a fun way to spend a weekend getting some unique bird images.
Let's Drive!
"I'm Never Doing that Again. Ever."
OK, so Carl's bird paradise is located in Clemson, South Carolina, which is supposed to be about a ten and a half hour drive from our home in St. Louis. We briefly thought about flying into Greenville but decided to drive instead. Mostly because of the equipment we wanted to bring. I'm not typically a tripod guy but since we were going to be shooting for many hours at a time I wanted to take my big honko Gitzo tripod and Wimberly ball head so my arm wouldn't fall off during the shoot. Times two with Tammy's gear and it just made more sense to drive. It's only 10 hours, right?
I checked a couple different map sites and everybody says the fastest route is through Nashville and Chattanooga, then skirt along I-285 north of Atlanta, then head back north on I-85 to Clemson. The route looks like a backward check mark on Google Maps. After living in Atlanta for ten years my biggest concern was that I-285 and I-85 portion so I kept looking for some other options. I double and triple checked and everybody says that's the fastest route. I should hunt them down. I'm not sure how much time we lost sitting in traffic down there but I'm NEVER going to take that route again. EVER. We came home through Asheville and Knoxville. Theoretically it takes longer but it's not I-285.
The Nut House
As you probably know, most of our bird photography adventures are "in the wild" photographing shorebirds, wading birds and raptors. We also do a little bit of songbird photography at some of the local parks around St. Louis, but this was going to be different. Carl has transformed his property into a bird paradise and has built two custom photographer blinds that allowed us to get very close to the wild birds attracted to his paradise without disturbing them. Carl limits his weekend sessions to five photographers and Tammy and I were joined by fellow photographers Steve, Mike and Lisa. Below are some behind the scenes shots to give you a flavor of the setup.
The Back Forty
"I call it The Back Forty but it's not really forty"
In addition to the main blind, Carl has been constructing a second blind on the property which he calls The Back Forty. It's another great setup with a reflecting pond at camera height that creates great opportunities for cool shots. I was excited to get the insider's tour and check out the new setup.
Field Trip
After a full day of shooting in the main blind and The Back Forty on Saturday, Carl asked if we wanted to check out a super secret location in the wild on Sunday morning to see if we could get some good shots there. All were on board for the field trip so we met at the Bird House early Sunday morning and took a couple cars to the super secret location. Below are a few shots from the morning field trip.
Back at The Nut House
After a successful field trip to the wild we headed back to The Nut House for a few more hours of shooting. Below are some more shots of the awesome birds. Carl invites all the photographers to sign their names on the front wall inside the main photo blind so I found a good spot and immortalized our visit. Since I got the idea to visit from MattK, I decided it was appropriate to sign our names by his. I'm sure he'll notice next time he's there!
Final Thoughts
Well, we weren't sure what to expect on this trip but it was a lot of fun. It was a great opportunity to enjoy the beautiful South Carolina weather and hang out with other wildlife photographers getting shots of the birds in their environment. I'm planning another trip to Carl's Nut House in 2024 so I'm looking forward to doing it again! And I know my pictures are going to be better...
Thanks for visiting! See you next time!
Check out my portfolio site for more images or my photography adventure page to read about our other adventures. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook at @psmithusa.