Serendipity Revisited

  Boynton Beauty Saloon. Old Georgia Highway 2, Catoosa County, Georgia

It occurred to me today that it's been a long time since I've written about something that has always been a major element of my photography -- serendipity.

According to Mr. Webster, serendipity is "an apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally."  Have you noticed that some photographers seem to have a monopoly on luck? Or at the very least, a downright uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time?

 But is it really luck--or chance--or fate? Partly, perhaps, but I think there's something else involved as well. Something I call the serendipity factor. It has been responsible for many of my best photographs, and I believe you can learn to use it to improve your photography also.

I can't do much about controlling fate, but I've found serendipity to be a most agreeable muse, and one who can be courted by the photographer who is willing to spend some time with her. In fact, it takes only three things to win her favor: preparation, presence, and awareness.

 

First, prepare. Simply carrying a camera (ready to shoot, of course) is the most basic form of preparedness. The more advance thought you give to such matters as the equipment you're likely to need, the kinds of subjects you may encounter, the probable lighting conditions, and possible problems which may arise, the more likely it is that serendipity will bestow her favors upon you.

Second,  presence. Or to put it more simply, be there. Old-time press photographers used to say that the key to great pictures is "f8 and be there!" But where is there? I don't know. You'll have to find that out for yourself. But I can tell you this: if you're enjoying a leisurely breakfast at your hotel in Bangkok as the sun rises and the streets begin to come alive with people, you're not there. There is out on the street, taking advantage of that glorious light and the relaxed, early-morning mood of the people.

Where's there? There is anywhere things are happening. "Theres" are infinite in number and you can't cover them all, but if you pick one and pursue it good things will happen. If you want to meet serendipity you must go where she is.

Third, be aware. Let yourself be loose and sensitive to the things and people around you. You can't do this if you're uptight or in a hurry, so slow down and tune in. The great French photojournalist Robert Doisneau, who had more encounters with serendipity in a month than most of us have in a lifetime, said "My way of working is to relax and take things slowly. I enjoy just wasting time...I believe I have gained most in life in those moments in which I simply wandered about without any fixed purpose in mind."

Prepare, be there, and be aware--and serendipity will find you. And you'll find that the more diligent you are in practicing these three things, the luckier you will become. Here are a few  principles to help you court her favor.

 

 

Assembling the raft, Madras Beach, India

Get Out Early  Some photographers prefer evening light, but I often find my best pictures early in the morning. There's a different, softer quality of light, a calm freshness in the air, and both people and nature seem more relaxed and approachable. On the city beach at Madras, India, the pictures come early or not at all, because the fisherman lash their raft-boats together and push them out through the surf at first light.  (Olympus OM, 35mm Zuiko, Fujichrome 100.)

    Early morning, Mayalan Village, Northern Guatemala.

Go Where the Action Is  In third world countries, the action is out on the streets and in the market places. In the U.S., it's sometimes a little harder to find, but it's still there if you look for it. The northern Guatemalan village of Mayalan is a beehive of activity in the early morning as the people go to their work and the children to school. Situations like this are so loaded with possibilities that you can almost get by without serendipity!  (Olympus OM, 75-205 Vivitar zoom, Fujichrome 100.)

Bottoms Up! Swans on the Berry College campus. Rome, Georgia

Just Keep Your Eyes Open and Your Brain Turned On   This is the most basic and effective advice I can give you. As the great sage Yogi Berra once said, "You can observe a whole lot just by lookin'." Look for things that are different or out of place or don't quite go together. The pictures at the top and bottom of this post are good examples. And when you see things like this, be ready to shoot.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    seeing photographs    serendipity     India     Guatemala    Berry Collegs     Olympus OM cameras     Fujichrome film

Georgia Small Towns: Barnesville

The main sales office of Jackson C. Smith Barnesville Buggies.

 Barnesville is a pleasant small city in west central Georgia, about 60 miles south of Atlanta and 40 miles northwest of Macon. The population is about 6,800. Around the turn of the 20th century, Barnesville was known as the "Buggy Capitol of the South," with as many as 9,000 buggies being built there each year. There's an annual Buggy Days festival each September.

Currently, the offices of Jackson C. Smith Barnesville Buggies are being occupied by a cell phone company. Times change.

 The Barnesville City Hall. Surely the funkiest city hall in the entire United States.

Founded in 1826, the town was named for Gideon Barnes, owner of the local tavern. It is the seat of Lamar County. Barnesville's City Hall is unusually distinctive. In fact, it is almost certainly the funkiest city hall in these United States. 

 The Barnes-Keifer House on Thomaston Street.

Just a few blocks from downtown, Main Street becomes Thomaston Street. Once the old U.S. Highway 41 main drag, it is lined with nearly a mile of really fine historic homes. The Barnes-Keifer House, above, is one of the last in the row. It was built in 1870 by Sarah and William Keifer, daughter and son-in-law of the town's founder.

In the late 1960s, before Interstate 75 was completed, I drove from Florida to Indiana several times. I remember being routed over to U.S. 41 and languishing in a long line of traffic moving slowly through Barnesville. I still like the place, though.

About the photos: The photo of Jackson C. Smith Buggies was made with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera and a Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm lens. The other two photos were made with a Canon EOS 6D and a Canon EF 28-105mm lens. 

This post was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia     Barnesville     Lamar County     Barnesville Buggies     Olympus E-M5 camera     Panasonic     Lumix G Vario 14-140mm lens     Canon EOS 6D camera    Canon EF 28-105mm lens

I Like Leicas

Praying woman at an Underground Church meeting in Moscow, Russia, 1990.

 

Blog Note: This is a re-post from February, 2020.

In fact, I love Leicas. I think they are the ultimate and perfect expressions of the camera-makers art. But do I use them? No. I like Leicas, but Leicas don't like me.

In the late 1960s I was living in Miami and teaching in a high school. For some time I had been looking longingly at the cameras in Browne's Camera Shop in North Miami, where I could have bought a pristine Leica M3 with a 50mm Summicron for $275 -- more than I could afford on my teacher's salary. But when I got a $300 windfall, I didn't buy a Leica, I bought a Nikon F single-lens reflex and a pair of Tamron lenses because I could photograph my school's football games with the 135mm f2.8 telephoto lens .

I did later buy a Leica, a IIIC with a 50mm f2 Summitar lens for $40 at the Bird Road Drive-In flea market, but found it inconvenient to operate. However, I didn't want to give up on the idea of rangefinder photography. In fact, I tried for 40 years (no kidding!) to make myself into a rangefinder shooter because many of the photographers that I most admired shot with rangefinders and because I believed all the many photo magazine articles written in praise of the rangefinder approach to photography. 

Along the way, I owned a number of fine cameras: several Leica M3s, a lovely Canon P, and numerous non-interchangeable lens rangefinders.

But I sold my last Leica, a treasured M3 with 50mm Summicron in 2010. The Retina IIc and the Olympus SPn went two years later. They were part of a world in which I do not belong and which I left with some sadness. I still believe all the things I read, but I also came to believe that there is such a thing as a rangefinder temperament, and that I do not have it. I reluctantly faced the reality that I am not and never will be a rangefinder shooter.

In my heart I’m a globe-trotting, Leica-toting, black & white documentarian of the human condition. 

Well, I have indeed done the globe-trotting documentation thing, and some (but not much) of it was with Leicas. But mostly it was done with a bag of Olympus OMs. Because in reality I am an SLR-shooting, zoom lens, color photographer whose style (I flatter myself) probably most resembles that of Sam Abell.

But I have wondered many, many times over the years how my life and career might have been different if I had learned serious photography with a rangefinder system instead of an SLR.

About the photo: In March of 1990 the Berlin wall had fallen just four months previously. But in Russia, persecuted evangelical Christians were still meeting secretly for fear of the government. The photograph was made with a Leica M3 and 50mm f2 Summicron lens on fast but grainy 3M 640T film pushed one stop to E.I. 1280.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel     Moscow, Russia   Leica M3     Leica IIIC     50mm f2 Summicron lens     Nikon F     Tamron lenses     Canon P     rangefinder cameras     Olympus OM     underground church     3M640T film

Letting Go

The great room in our home in McLemore Cove.

In 1985 Louise and I bought 30 acres of land in northwest Georgia's McLemore Cove. In 1987 we moved onto the property in a 12x40 foot mobile home. In 1993-94 we built our house, just the way we wanted it. The kids and grandkids came regularly to enjoy the pond, the pool, and the farm. We had 33 great years at Deer Run Farm.

But by 2019, we knew it was time to go. We no longer had cattle, but with the house and extensive grounds and constant maintenance, it was difficult to keep up. And Louise's health was deteriorating. We had reached the point where we no longer owned our property. It owned us.

We put the place up for sale in 2020 and it sold quickly. We had to leave, but we didn't know where we wanted to go. We had often talked about full-time RVing, so we bought a fifth-wheel trailer, had it moved to an RV park just outside Chattanooga, and in January, 2021, moved into the RV.

Then we had an estate sale and sold everything that wouldn't fit in the RV and a 10x10-foot storage unit. We sold the furniture and possessions we had accumulated over 55 years of our life together. The maple drop-leaf table, chairs and hutch we bought second-hand in Miami in 1968 and refinished twice over the years. The bedroom furniture Louise's mother had given us. Living room furniture we bought in 1994 that still looked great. Most of my tools.

The tractor and farm equipment were sold to our son Don.

We thought it would be hard. But it wasn't. We enjoyed our things, used them well, and loved them. But in the end, it wasn't hard at all. They were only things, and their time in our life was past. We were together, we had each other, and the future beckoned. 

The pool and rear view of our house.

 It might seem like a lot to give up, but it really wasn't.

We loved our home, but we couldn't keep holding on to it. So we let it go. And everything has worked out fine. 

(But I'm not letting go of my cameras.)

Photos: Fuji X-T1, Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography  homes     northwest Georgia     McLemore Cove     full-time RVing     Fuji X-T1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens

Milestones

Millstones at the Ogeechee River Mill, Hancock County, Georgia.

I would usually rather write about millstones than milestones, but this is a bit of a milestone for me -- it's post number 600 since I began this blog. 

I actually began in 2011, wrote six posts, then took an eight year hiatus, returning in December, 2019. Since then I've been posting three times a week except when life gets in the way, as it sometimes does.

I realize that 600 posts aren't that many, compared to other bloggers who have written thousands of posts over many years, but for me it's an accomplishment to have had enough discipline to stick to something I wasn't being paid to do. 

A few readers have been with me almost from the beginning; some have jumped in later and then gone back and read every post, and most, I expect, just happen to visit from time to time when something catches their eyes. I'm grateful to all of you, and I have only one request -- I wish you would comment when something I write resonates with you. 

Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you would sign your name to your comment. I realize that the Blogger software makes it unnecessarily difficult to do this, so just comment as "Anonymous," then sign your name at the end of your comment.

And whether you comment or not, thank you very much for reading my blog.

Photo: Olympus E-M5 digital camera, Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm lens. 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   millstones     old mills     Ogeechee River Mill     Hancock County, Georgia     digital cameras    Olympus E-M5     Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm lens

What Is Photography?

Cades Cove barn at sunset, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

 Blog Note: This is a repost from 2021.

 

What is photography? Is it a hobby? A craft? A profession? 

Is it art?

Are photographers artists? 

The answer to both questions is sometimes. Not all photographs are art, but some are. Not all photographers are artists, but some are. Some of the time.

Photography got off on the wrong foot at its birth, more than 190 years ago, because no one was sure just how it should be classified. Since it rendered three- dimensional reality in two dimensions on a flat surface, photography soon came to be regarded as a form of drawing, albeit inferior because it was achieved by mechanical and chemical means.  Most photographers accepted this evaluation unquestioningly and set out in great earnest to prove that photography could compete with the older media by producing work that looked like drawing, painting, or engraving. 

Part of the problem then and now is confusion of terminology; using the words medium and art as though they were interchangeable, when in fact they are not. Painting is a medium, as are sculpture, engraving, photography, and pottery.  When practiced at a high level of competence within the context of its own inherent qualities, each medium is a craft which may become art when imbued with an indefinable presence imparted by the being of the artist himself.

The essence of photography is that it is photographic. It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized surface. Light rays bouncing off something that is really there go through a lens and are recorded onto film, a sensor of some kind, or something not yet invented, but whatever it is, it is "writing with light." 

As distinguished from other visual media, the art of photography is primarily the art of seeing. A photograph is created at the instant of exposure, and nothing done to it afterward will make it art if it was not well seen to begin with. Throughout the history of the medium, the works that have had power, the works that have lasted, have been straight photographs. Furthermore, most of them have been documentary photographs. Their power and their art are in the photographer's ability to see and to present his vision in a tangible form.

So what about the photograph at the top of this post? Is it art?

 Maybe. Maybe not. Some people may consider it art, others won't.

Am I an artist?

Maybe. Probably not. But I always work with artistic intent and an artistic attitude. Other than that, I don't worry about it. History may declare that my photographs have staying power and that I was an artist, but I won't be around to receive any plaudits. So I make my photographs the best I can and am happy in the doing. That's all I can do.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography  art     art of photography     barns     Cades Cove     Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Hello? Hello! Is Anyone Here?

Abandoned  home near Armuchee, Georgia.

Writing a blog on a regular schedule is like having a baby and then waking up pregnant again the next day.

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy writing this blog. It helps me keep up my writing skills, and sometimes I even write things that surprise me. It also helps with discipline -- something I'm not very good at. I've written nearly 600 posts over the last three and a half years. But writing can be a lonely craft. And always, I wonder: is anyone listening? Is anyone reading what I write? Is it of any value to anyone? Or am I just writing for myself?

So I launch my babies out into the blogosphere, seldom knowing where they land or how they fare.  The Blogger stats say my posts get a fair number of hits, but I get very few comments. 

Which brings me to my point. I would like to ask, Is Anyone Here? Is this blog of any value to you? If it is, will you please post a brief comment? Anonymous is fine, don't need any attaboys, just a quick "I'm here" will do. I would just like to know if you're out there.

Thank you.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.