Early Snow. Sourwood
Lane, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.
As a follow-up to my previous post "Please Yourself,"I'm reposting a blog from five years ago -- December, 2020.
In November of that year, friend and fellow photo-blogger Dennis Mook, who blogs as The Wandering Lensman at thewanderinglensman.com was on a roll with some really good posts.
On November 19th, he wrote about wabi-sabi, a Japanese term that means the appreciation of "beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature." But when he looks at today's landscape photography, he no longer sees a representation of nature or nature's imperfections: he sees photographs that are dramatic, over-edited, and over-saturated; hyper-real and hyper-perfect.
On November 27th, he posted a photograph that was so quietly beautiful that I was compelled to write in his comments section "This photograph is quietly, modestly, perfectly beautiful. I would hang it on my wall anytime. It is a perfect counterpoint to the "spectacular," overprocessed photographs you wrote about on Nov. 17. . . it will have far more "staying power" on your wall than a so-called "spectacular" landscape. It will give the eye delight and rest every time you walk into the room."
From
my very earliest days in photography my aim has been to capture a moment of
stillness in each photograph. My name for my portfolio of "art"
photographs is "Images of Tranquility." My photographs are mostly
quiet, and I hope, quietly beautiful. I don't do spectacular. I just see what I see and try to show it.
Ricky's Trees. Daugherty Gap Road, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.
My post-processing is pretty simple: I have an old version of Photoshop -- CS2 -- that does most of what I want to do. Just an exposure adjustment in Curves, if needed, and light burning and dodging with the Brush tool, plus a simple adjustment in Unsharp Masking that enhances mid-tone contrast without affecting highlights or shadows, and I'm done. I want my photographs to look like the scenes as I saw them, not hyped-up renditions that never existed in reality.
Rooted in the Past. S. Dicks Creek Road, Armuchee Valley, Walker County, Georgia.
I realize this will not make me popular with some photographers, and maybe not with the art-photo buying public. So be it. I am thankfully, too old to care.
The Photos: Early Snow was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. For Ricky's Trees, I used a Canon EOS 5D Classic with the Canon EF 70-200mm f4L lens, and for Rooted in the Past, I used an Olympus E-M5 and the Panasonic 14-140mm Vario G lens.
Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.
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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