Your Yard Sale Place

 “Your Yard Sale Place” Georgia Hwy. 32, Bacon County    

 Traveling along State Highway 32 just north of Waycross, near sunset on my 2010 trip around the perimeter of Georgia, I came across this odd structure. I thought maybe it was a boxcar that had somehow managed to jump its tracks and find a new home in a recently plowed field. 

However, when I enlarged the digital file in Photoshop, I found that it was some sort of trailer. There's a hitch on the left end, and two sets of rubber tires underneath. There also appear to be air conditioners at both ends. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Apparently, this was someone's dream of starting a business. The power pole and electric meter box would seem to indicate that it was a serious attempt, and not that someone just towed the trailer out into the field and abandoned it. The fact that what would appear to have been the parking lot has been plowed would suggest that the business didn't make it.

I saw many strange and interesting sights as I drove Georgia's highways. I'm looking forward to finding more visual treasures in Tennessee. As Robert Louis Stephenson wrote:       

" The world is so full of a number of things

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

Just keep your eyes open and your camera handy.

(Canon EOS 5D Classic digital camera, EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens)

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    Georgia     travel    Canon 5D Classic     digital cameras    Canon EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens)     

The Magic of Ordinary Things

 Chaise Lounge, U.S. Hwy 129, Irwin County

I am by no means a great photographer, although I've been a professional for more than 50 years and am reasonably competent in many aspects of commercial work -- advertising, architecture, photojournalism, and portraits, among the many things a small-market generalist photographer may be called upon to do. Most of these take specialized skills, especially skill in the use of light.

However, most of the photographs posted on this blog and in my books requires no specialized knowledge at all -- just basic camera-handling skills. In other words, these are pictures most of my readers could have made. There's magic in ordinary things and in the scenes most of us see every day. The operative word is see. Do we actually see the world around us, or do we just pass by without noticing? 

Hundreds of people pass the little pond with the red settee on U.S. 129 in south Georgia without noticing it. Some do notice, but how many stop to make a picture? This picture could have been made by just about anyone with a camera, but I'm probably the only one who actually did stop and make a photograph. It isn't rocket science. It's just noticing, and taking a moment to make a photo of what you notice. 

Beyond that, if you want your picture to be as appealing as possible, learn a few simple things about composition, which is the art of setting the boundaries of your frame and arranging the elements within it in the way you find most attractive. Again, it's not rocket science.

If you would like to learn more about composing your photographs, check out the six-part series I posted in February, 2022. It begins here. 

(Canon EOS 5D Classic digital camera, EF 70-200 f4L lens)

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    Georgia     travel    Canon 5D Classic     digital cameras     Canon EF 70-200 f4L lens

The Ogeechee River Mill

The Ogeechee River Mill, Hancock County, Georgia

In an obscure location about eight miles west of Warrenton, Georgia (oh, you never heard of Warrenton?) stands the Ogeechee River Grist Mill, one of the state's most beautiful old mills.

The first mill at this location was built in 1847 on the other side of the river, but was rebuilt on its present site in 1933 to avoid flooding. The original wooden dam was replaced by a concrete dam at that time. 

The mill is unusually beautiful and well-preserved, and is very much in business with a number of clients for its products. It's a good idea to call well in advance to arrange a tour, because the mill is located on a working cattle farm and owners Missy Garner and her son Alex Broward are busy people. Call them at 706-464-2195 or 706-831-1432 and leave a message if you don't get an answer. The cost of the tour is $10 for adults; school children get in free. I assure you that you will get your money's worth. 

Millstones at the Ogeechee River Mill

 Southern-style grits are a specialty, and if the mill isn't grinding grits when you visit, you can buy a bag or two at the IGA grocery store in Warrenton.

(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia. Both pictures made with an Olympus OM-D EM-5 Micro 4/3s digital camera and a Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens.)

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    Georgia     travel   old mills     micro 4/3s digital cameras     Olympus OM-D EM-5     Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 lens

Snow in South Georgia

South Georgia Snow. US Hwy. 19, Taylor County

 

Northern tourists want to know “What is that fluffy white stuff in the fields? Looks like snow!”

That fluffy white stuff is cotton, and it has a long history in Georgia.

In the years before the Civil War, cotton was king all across the South. But nowhere did it reign more supremely than in Georgia, where it was first planted in 1733 and began to be grown commercially in 1788. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made cotton the state’s major cash crop.

In 1914 more than five million Georgia acres were planted in cotton. Nowadays it’s still the most widely grown row crop in the state, with about one and a quarter to one and a half million acres planted. Better farming and harvesting methods make those acres more productive. Only Texas grows more cotton than Georgia in the U.S.

Did you know the cotton gin was invented in Chatham County, Georgia? Whitney’s patent was signed by President George Washington himself.

(From my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. Canon EOS A2 camera, Fujichrome 100D film.)

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    Georgia     travel     cotton      cotton gin     Canon EOS A2 camera, Fujichrome 100D film     Eli Whitney     Chatham County

AI and the Sense of Wonder

Horse Laugh. U.S, Highway 11, Riceville, Tennessee

There's much discussion these days among those involved in creative fields about AI -- Artificial Intelligence. AI can do wondrous things: it can write an essay or a magazine article. It can make a sculpture. It can even create a photograph.

No, wait! Did I say AI can make a photograph? That's not true. It can make something that may look like a photograph, but it's not a photograph. The essence of photography is that 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." The unique power of photography is derived from this direct connection to reality.  

Dorothea Lange kept a quotation by the English essayist Francis Bacon on her darkroom door: “The contemplation of things as they are, without error or confusion, without substitution or imposture, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention." As Fred Picker said in the March 1994 issue of Shutterbug, "This Koudelka (print by Czech photographer Joseph Koudelka) on the wall contains the most amazing combination of things that I know happened, because when he made that photograph there was no electronic imaging. Here are two horses, standing in a certain position, a boy sitting on a bicycle wearing an angel suit with angel wings, here's an old lady scolding him, all in magnificent light and beautifully composed. Today, that picture could be made by some guy sitting in front of a computer. Knowing that would take all the wonder out of it." 

In actuality, it isn’t likely some guy sitting in front of a computer would make such a picture, because those who create "photographs" are limited by their imaginations. They can only do what they can conceive. But photography goes beyond human imagination. As novelist Tom Clancy has said, “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense.” The magic of photography is that life holds so many amazing and wonderful things that are entirely unanticipated, unexpected, even unimagined in the deepest sense; that is -- no one would ever have thought of such a thing happening. And then, suddenly, right out of the fabric of life, there it is. 

"I can do a beautiful illustration, but it doesn't have that 'instant of wonder' that a photograph will have." (Art Director Tony Anthony, quoted in "Photo District News," February, 1987.) Photography shows us things that lie beyond our imagination and compel our amazement because they really happened. It revels in the beauty, the mystery, and the strangeness of life. 

I repeat: the unique power of photography is derived from its direct connection to reality. It is the most powerful purely visual medium ever created.

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 copyright 2023 The Estate of Fritz Henle. Text copyright 2023 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    photographic seeing    Artificial Intelligence    AI    Dorothea Lange     Josef Koudelka     Tom Clancy

Seeing Photos: Photographers to Learn From

Rooted in the Past. Walker County, Georgia

 

Well, I'm afraid I promised more than I can deliver. I said in my post of September 8th that I would suggest some photographers whose work you could study online. But when I started looking, I couldn't find as much as I had hoped. Elliott Erwitt has some excellent work posted online, and Jay Maisel has a very extensive web site, with photos arranged in categories. Tony King died several years ago and his web site has been taken down. Richard W. Brown doesn't have much on line, but Fritz Henle has many online galleries, as does Robert Doisneau. James Ravilious has a moderate amount of work online. Sam Abell has a small gallery posted.

 I hope you can learn a few things from me, but I'm a very limited resource. You can see some of my better photos at my online gallery https://davejenkins.pixels.com/

If you have access to a bookstore such as Barnes & Noble, look in their photography book section. Check used bookstores if you have any in your area. Especially, see what's available in your local library. Look for photographers whose work resonates with you. In a real sense, my career began when I found a small book by Fritz Henle in the Miami Public Library.

You may notice that I've listed mostly 20th century photographers, although some are still active. These are the ones I know, the ones who have influenced me most, even though my work doesn't look much like theirs. 

When it comes to recommending contemporary photographers, I'm afraid I can't be much help. Like the old hayrake in the photograph above, I too am rooted in the past.

 

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 copyright 2023 The Estate of Fritz Henle. Text copyright 2023 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    photographic seeing       Fritz Henle     B.A. "Tony" King    Robert Doisneau     Elliott Erwitt      James Ravilious     Richard W. Brown     Jay Maisel    Sam Abell

Taking a Short Break

 Sourwood Lane, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia

Taking a short break. I'll be back on Monday. Meanwhile, I'll repost a picture that everyone seems to like.

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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:   Georgia     Walker County    McLemore Cove

Falling for Louise

                               Louise and Georgia. June, 2022, Raccoon Valley RV Park

You may have noticed that this blog didn't appear on Monday. I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, unless life gets in the way. Life got in the way.

I am a lifelong, world-class procrastinator, so my blogs usually get written the night before they're posted. Sometimes, late the night before. Occasionally I get two or three posts written in advance, but it's usually the night before.

Sunday evening, when I would have been writing my blog for Monday, we were at the University of Tennessee Medical Center Emergency Room. In fact, we were there from about 11:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Louise had another fall.

This wasn't a horrible fall, like the one on May 12 of this year, but any fall is bad. And it happened in the same place -- on the choir loft steps at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church.

This time, she slipped and fell backwards, getting a bump on her head, a bruise on her hip, and an abrasion on her elbow. Bad enough. The EMTs who came didn't consider her injuries sufficiently severe to require an ambulance, but recommended we take her to an emergency room, just the same. So we did.

We arrived, as I said, about 11:30 a.m. She was seen reasonably quickly, and x-rays and MRI scans were made within a couple of hours. Then we settled down to wait for the scans to be read so she could be admitted or released. And waited.

And waited.

There was a massive pile-up on Interstate 40 that tied up the ER for hours. In fact, it was around 10 p.m. before her scans and x-rays were read and we were told we could go home.

Louise slept fairly well last night and did some napping today. By this evening she was about back to her normal self. She thinks she will have to give up choir, though, which is sad. She has been singing all her life. She was a music major at Florida State and gave a voice recital. Her voice is unusual for its beauty and clarity.

Louise has had many falls over the years, some of them serious. But she keeps on going. She is the most courageous person I know. She has an indomitable spirit. I pray she will stop falling. I want to keep her a good while longer. 58 years is not enough.

 

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

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

Seeing Photos: Study the Great Photographers

Stonehenge. Copyright The Estate of Fritz Henle

A very important part of my own journey in learning to see photographically has been looking at the work of other photographers. Those whose work has been most inspirational for me are Fritz Henle, my first, and still one of my greatest, influences; B.A. "Tony" King, Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt, James Ravilious, and Richard W. Brown.

This is a diverse group, and you might well ask "How does this business of studying the work of other photographers fit in with your recommendation in your previous post about finding one's individuality?"

To that question I can only reply that it works. I have drunk deeply at the well of each of these photographers and my own photos are the better for it, yet my pictures do not look like theirs.

My favorite way of looking at photographs is in books, of which I have a large collection. Some of the photographers I mentioned still have books in print; some of their books can be found in used bookstores, and most of their books are available through online bookstores such as abebooks.com. But building a collection, even with used books, can be an expensive way to go.

I think books are actually the second best way to look at photographs. The best way, of course, is to view original prints. But that's not an option for most of us unless we live in large cities with art galleries that show photographs.

So that leaves looking at photographs online: an option that's available to just about all of us. If you're reading this, it's open to you. Look up the photographers I've listed above, and add one more name to the list: Jay Maisel.

Nest time I'll name more photographers I think you can learn from and whose work you may enjoy looking at.

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 copyright 2023 The Estate of Fritz Henle. Text copyright 2023 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    photographic seeing       Fritz Henle     B.A. "Tony" King    Robert Doisneau     Elliott Erwitt      James Ravilious     Richard W. Brown     Jay Maisel

Seeing Photos: Find Your Individuality

Peterbilt

Copyright the estate of Charles Robert Barnard

 

 

What do you like to photograph? What really interests you? Finding your individuality is an essential part of seeing photographically.

Bob and Jane were lifelong friends of ours. For his birthday one year in the mid-1980s, Bob told Jane he would like to have a camera. I recommended a Canon AE-1.

Bob was a contractor. He never took a class in photography. As far as I know he never even read a photo magazine. He just began photographing the things that interested him as he went about his daily life. By the time of his passing from brain cancer 20 years later he had accumulated a sizable and unique body of work that showed his world as he saw it in his own individual way.You can read more about Bob and see more of his pictures here.

 

 

For myself, I enjoy photographing many different things. The old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky. Old stores, old barns, old houses, old churches; signs, abandoned automobiles, fields of flowers, scenes of natural beauty, the play of light on a human face or on the face of the earth.

The way you "see" photographically may be very different from the way I see, even if we photograph the same things. And that's as it should be. I'm not you, and you're not me. Our different circumstances and different life experiences make us who we are and determine how we see our different worlds. Your way of looking at the world will be different from mine and your photographs should show that difference.  Your photographs must be yours.  They must come from your heart, your way of seeing life and the world.

 

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 copyright 2023 The Estate of Charles Robert Barnard. Text copyright 2023 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    film photography    photographic seeing    Canon AE-1 camera    Peterbilt truck

Seeing Photos: Great Light Is Where You Find It

After evening chapel at the Church of God mission hospital, Nigeria.

In 1989 I was on a three-week tour of several African countries on assignment for the World Missions Department of the Church of God -- a tour that took me to Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, and Kenya. I spent several days at the Church of God mission compound at Abak, in Ibom Province, Nigeria. One evening, as I was walking across the grounds toward the mission hospital, I noticed that the beams of the setting sun were running horizontally across the ground and splashing sunbursts against the hospital wall. 

The evening chapel service had just concluded. A few people were standing around, but what I mostly saw was the  light. I was carrying my faithful Olympus OM2n camera loaded with Fujichrome 100-speed slide film and fitted with a Tokina 100-300mm f4 zoom lens. There was no time to plan a careful composition, change lenses, or take a meter reading. I seldom used auto-exposure in those days, but the OM2n had that capability and I quickly flipped the switch to auto and made three quick shots before the light faded. 

My lens was at the 300mm setting, wide open at f4, and the auto-exposure was giving me 1/15th second. I had little  hope of getting anything usable -- but nothing attempted, nothing gained! Since there was no chimping in those days, I had to wait until I was back in the U.S. to find that I had one very sharp exposure and another that was usable out of the three. 

And although I had been only minimally conscious of the people in the photo as I shot, their positions turned out to be just right. Serendipity.

This, by the way, is an exception to the rule that light should come at an angle from one side or other of the subject. Great light is where you find it, and when you see it, go for it. Take a chance. You may not get the shot you're hoping for, but then again, you might. Either way, you'll learn something valuable.

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    film photography    photographic seeing   travel    Africa    Ghana    Nigeria    Zambia    Kenya    Olympus ON2n camera    Tokina lens    Fujichrome 100 film    Church of God missions  

Seeiing Photos: Look for the Light

Ford 8N Tractor in shed, U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

Photography is about light.  In fact, the word "photograph" comes from two Greek words: photos, which means "light," and grapho, which means "to write."  So to photograph really means to write with light.

The best light for photography usually comes in early morning and late afternoon when the sun is low, bathing everything in a rich, golden glow and casting long shadows which reveal texture and form. 

However, you can often find good light any time of day if you learn to look for it. In order to reveal texture and form, light must play across the subject from one side or the other. Straight-on light will always result in a flat-looking subject.

 Notice what the light is doing in the example above. See the way it brings out shapes and kisses the old boards with warmth? If the light were hitting the shed from the front, it might be a pleasant picture of an old shed and an old tractor, but it would have no depth, no character.

Studying the light, learning to notice what it's doing, will probably result in more rapid improvement in your photography than anything else you can do. And it's something you can do anytime light is present, whether or not you have a camera in your hand.

(Canon EOS 5D Classic digital camera, September, 2006.)

Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 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 2023 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    photographic seeing    Canon EOS 5D Classic camera    travel    Georgia