(Adapted from a post in June, 2020.)
Actually, the book that changed my
life was the Bible. But the book that changed my professional life was Rock City Barns: A Passing Era.
In 1982 I began doing advertising
and public relations photography for Rock
City Gardens,
a tourist attraction on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga,
Tennessee. In 1988, Bill Chapin,
the president of See Rock City, Inc. told me about his long-time dream to
create a book about Rock City's barns and asked me to find out what it would
cost.
He decided not to proceed at that
time, but my interest had been kindled. I obtained a list of the 110 barns they
were still repainting, and whenever my travels brought me near one, I made a
photograph of it if possible. In 1994, after learning that the number of barns
being repainted had dwindled to 85, I made prints of some of my photos and told
him I felt that if we were ever to do a book, now was the time.
He didn't say much. Just looked at
the pictures for several minutes, asked a few questions, then said the magic
words: "Let's do it!"
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File Cards with Barn Locations
Cards like these were used by many businesses in
pre-computer days. In a few days he sent me a box
containing hundreds of old office file cards from the 1960s; Rock City's
only record of most barn locations. On each card was the name of the property
owner at that time, the highway, and the distance from the nearest town. Many
had a small photo attached, apparently taken about 1960; but some had only
rough sketches of the barns. Inside the fold-over card was a record of rents
paid (usually $3 to $5 per year) and repaint dates. Rock
City had had no contact
with most of these barns since the late 60s.
The only way to find out if they were still standing was to go and see.
So I went.
Sorting the cards into piles by
states (15), and within states by highways, I planned an itinerary and began
photographing at Sweetwater,
Tennessee on October 24,
1994. Over the next 18 months, stealing
time from my studio whenever I could, the trail of barns led my old Chevy
Blazer nearly 35,000 miles to more than 500 sites.
When the photography was well
along, I hired a designer and began writing the text. The designer found a
printing agent and boom! I was in the publishing business! The agent placed our
book project with a printing house in Belgium known for fine printing --
their principal business was museum catalogs.
Chapin ordered 20,000 copies for Rock City,
which gave me a tidy profit on the enterprise. And this is where I made what I
have come to regard as a serious mistake: instead of taking my profit and using
it to finance other book projects, I reasoned that I could triple my money if I
ordered 10,000 books to sell myself.
Unfortunately, I failed to
consider the true costs. I had to hire additional staff to deal with taking
orders and shipping; I had to rent additional office space; and I wound up
spending a great deal of time over the next ten years promoting and selling the
book: time that could have been used to build up my photography business and,
as I said, to develop new book projects. Instead, I spent many weekends
lugging my books and prints to arts and crafts shows and spent many hours
traveling to book signings.
As the old proverb says, "We
grow too soon old and too late smart."
It was an interesting experience
and kinda fun sometimes, but I do wish I had instead put the time into building up my
business and developing new book projects. See my October 3rd Post for information about ordering original prints from the Rock City Barns book.
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If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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