The Lonliness of the Long Distance Blogger

 

In 1959 Alan Sillitoe published a short story titled "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner." In 1962, it was made into a film of the same name. I never read the story or saw the film, so I don't know what it's about. But the title has always intrigued me. It seems to me to suggest persistence in a solitary endeavor.

I began this blog in 2011 while on vacation, wrote six consecutive posts, then abandoned it for eight years. In December, 2019, I came back because I thought I had some worthwhile things to say about photography and about life. I've managed to post three times a week, most weeks since then. I've repeated a few posts, but mostly it has been new material. I'm now up to almost 700 posts, and I will have to say it has been a solitary endeavor. Google stats tell me that at least some people are reading this blog, but I average only about one comment for every two posts. That's lonely.

I began my photography career in the heyday of photography magazines. In fact, it's safe to say that if it hadn't been for the magazines I would not have become a professional photographer. But one thing I learned after reading the magazines for a number of years was that photo magazines recycled their content about every five years. The writers may have been different and their approaches may have been different, but the same ideas were repeated in different forms.

I've now been doing this blog for a little more than five years.  I don't want to recycle content, but every week brings a lot of head-scratching and soul-searching as I look for new things to write about.

If I had my druthers, every post I write would be about photography. But I'm running out of things to write without recycling content. So I'll be writing more posts about travel, mills, bridges, small towns, and life in general and my own life in particular.

So, please, if something I write resonates with you, send me a comment. It's fine if you comment as "anonymous," but if you do, please sign your name so I'll know who you are.

The photo above was made on assignment some years ago for a now-defunct magazine to go with an article about a marathon runner. The camera was a Canon EOS A2 and the film was Fujichrome 100.

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 $3.95 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 2011-2025 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   Canon EOS A2 camera     blogging    Alan Sillitoe    Fujichrome 100 film

Dahlonega, Part II

A variety of shops make the town square an interesting place to spend an afternoon.

Dahlonega has been named as Georgia's best small town for 2023, according to an article in Southern Living magazine.

In many ways, Dahlonega is the gateway to the north Georgia mountains, located as it is at the northern terminus of Georgia Highway 400. a direct, four-lane, 65-mile pipeline to Atlanta. Close enough that there actually some people who live in Dahlonega and commute.

Whether you enjoy rummaging through the many shops that surround the town square, hiking, biking, or driving the nearby mountains, or sampling the wares at the many vineyards that surround the town, Dahlonega is a great place to visit. It has some excellent restaurants, too. I can especially recommend the Smith House on South Chestatee Street, which features home cooking, served family style.

Pryce Memorial Hall on the University of North Georgia campus.

Dahlonega is also home to the University of North Georgia and Georgia Military College. The school was founded in 1873, and the military college is one of only six senior military colleges in the United States. The university offers over a hundred courses of study. Pryce Memorial Hall, the administration building, was built in 1879 on the foundation of the 1838 U.S. Mint. Its steeple is covered in gold leaf.

In 2000, after 30 years as a registered nurse, Louise enrolled in the Master of Science nursing program at the university to become a Nurse Practitioner. For two years, she and another nurse from Summerville made the 112-mile trip to Dahlonega several days a week, leaving about 5:30 a.m. to arrive in time for 8 a.m. classes. Through all of this, she also worked full or part-time nursing jobs. I don't know how she did it, but she is determined. And tough. She only looks delicate and fragile.

Piggin' out at Dahlonega's Gold Rush Days Festival.

 The Gold Rush Days Festival, held the third weekend in October, draws as many as 200,000 people to Dahlonega to enjoy the fall colors at their peak, learn about the history of the gold rush, and check out the more than three hundred arts and crafts and food vendors that line the Public Square and Historic District. Especially, for some, the food vendors.

The photos: The shops on the square were photographed with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera fitted with the Panasonic 14-140mm lens.Pryce Hall was photographed with a Canon EOS A2 and Fujichrome 100 film, and the corn-on-the-cob connoisseur with a Leica M3 and 50mm Leitz Summicron lens, also loaded with Fujichrome 100.

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 $3.95 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 2011-2025 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   digital photography   Georgia     Canon EOS A2 camera     Leitz Summicron lens      Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 14-140mm lens     Olympus E-M5 camera     Dahlonega     Leica M3 camera     gold     gold rush     film photography     Dahlonega Gold Rush Days     University of North Georgia

Dahlonega: "Thar's gold in them thar hills!"

The 1836 Lumpkin County Courthouse is now the Dahlonega Gold Museum.

To me, the northeast Georgia town with the unusual name of Dahlonega has always been one of the state's most interesting small cities. (The name, by the way, means "yellow earth" -- the Cherokee word for gold.) It is forever tied to the discovery of gold in the north Georgia mountains and America's first gold rush. 

In 1828, gold was discovered in nearby Auraria (the name means "city of gold"). By 1829, more than a thousand miners had flooded into the area. Auraria was the county seat from 1828 to 1832, and boasted 20 saloons, five hotels, and a newspaper. 

The general store in Auraria was built as a tavern in 1830.

The county seat was moved to Dahlonega in 1832, and now nothing is left of Auraria except one of the taverns, which stayed in business as a general store into the 1980s. It is still standing, but not in good condition. Some person or organization needs to step up and do an intervention or this historically significant building will be lost.

The Georgia gold rush ended in 1849, when gold was discovered in California and the miners left en masse, even though the Dahlonega Mint assayer Dr. M.F. Stephenson stood on the courthouse steps and tried to persuade miners to stay in Dahlonega by telling them, "There's millions in it," usually misquoted as "Thar's gold in them thar hills!" He was no doubt correct, as the "Mother Lode" has never been found.

Robbie and Jennifer panning for gold at Crisson's Gold Mine.

Did you know you can still prospect for gold in the area? My wife and I spent an enjoyable afternoon with two of our grandchildren panning for gold at Crisson's Gold Mine, which has been in business since 1847. We did in fact, find some gold, some of which my wife incorporated into her wedding band when she had it recast. At Consolidated Gold Mines, you can not only pan for gold, but also take a tour of the largest underground gold mine east of the Mississippi.

 The photos: The old courthouse/gold museum was photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Classic with the Canon EF 17-35L lens. For the old store in Auraria I used an Olympus E-M5 with the Panasonic 14-140mm lens, and for the photo of my grandchildren panning gold I used a Canon EOS A2 film camera.

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 $3.95 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 2011-2025 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   digital photography   Georgia     Canon EOS A2 camera     Canon EF 17-35L lens      Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 14-140mm lens     Olympus E-M5 camera     Dahlonega     Canon EOS 5D Classic camera     gold     gold rush     film photography     Dahlonega Gold Museum

Two Unusual Tennessee Mills

Sergeant York's Mill. U.S. Highway 127, Pall Mall, Tennessee.

 Sergeant Alvin York was the greatest hero of World War One, wiping out a German machine gun nest and capturing 132 enemy soldiers with a small band of men. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his exploits and had many opportunities to profit from his celebrity. 

But he chose to live a simple life. After the war, he returned to his home at Pall Mall, Tennessee, a community about 45 miles north of Crossville on U.S. Highway 127. In 1919, the Nashville Rotary Club began raising money, and in 1922, bought a 400-acre farm and built a two-story house for York and his wife. In 1925, York opened a general store across the road from his home, and in 1943, he bought the mill on the Wolf River just downstream from his house and operated it until his death in 1964.

After his passing, York's widow sold the mill and farm to the state of Tennessee, which eventually made it the Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park.

The mill was built in 1880, and, thanks to excellent maintenance by the Tennessee state parks department, is a pristine example of a turbine mill of its era. It's well worth a visit if you're at all interested in old mills.

The Ebenezer Mill. Ebenezer Road, Knoxville, TN. 

The Ebenezer Mill is one of two mills that are actually within the Knoxville city limits. Fronting on Ebenezer Road, the mill is only about a mile from my home. The other one is on private property and I haven't yet been able to photograph it.

The Ebenezer Mill was built around 1870 on the site of an earlier mill called the Heiskell Mill, which dated from around 1835. The millstones were powered by a turbine, rather than a wheel, and originally ground corn and wheat. The mill was later modified to serve as a saw mill. Water power came from Sinking Creek, now known as Ten-Mile Creek. The mill dam washed out around 1930, signalling the end of the mill's useful life. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

The equipment: The Sergeant York Mill was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D digital camera and a Canon USM  24-85mm EF lens. For the Ebenezer Mill, I used a Fuji X-T3 with the Fujicron XF 16-80mm lens.

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 2011-2025 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   digital photography    Canon EOS 20D cameras   Canon USM 24-85mm lens    Fuji X-T3 camera     Fujinon XF 16-80mm lens     old mills     Sergeant York Mill      Ebenezer Mill     Knoxville     Tennessee     U.S. Highway 127

Taking a little break. . .

Sunrise over Chickamauga Creek. McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

Taking a few days break. I'll be back soon. Wishing you a happy new year. Louise and I had a lovely time with our sons and their families here in Knoxville and in Atlanta over the holidays.

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 $3.95 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 2011-2025 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   Olympus OM film camera     film photography    McLemore Cove    Walker County    Georgia

Overload: The Problem with Full-Frame Cameras

Launching a fishing boat through the surf. Madras City Beach, India.    

I used to think nothing of carrying a bag loaded with 25 or 30 pounds of cameras and lenses.

I don't think much of it now, either. 

I can't believe I went to India, South Korea, and Singapore in 1992 carrying a bag with three 35mm Olympus OM film cameras and four lenses, another case containing a (heavy) Pentax 6x7 camera and some flash units, and a bunch of film for both cameras. But I was young and vigorous then -- just a 54 year old kid.

And maybe a little bit stupid. Although I and my client were happy with the pictures, I could probably have done a better job with less equipment to juggle. But I went on being a packhorse for a long time, eventually moving to digital photography and still heavier cameras.

The tipping point for me came in 2010, when I hauled two Canon bodies and a basic set of three pro zooms and a 50mm macro lens on a trip to Israel and Jordan. 

 Sweating my load on the long walk into Petra, the ancient city carved out of rock, I chanced to meet a man who was carrying only a micro 4/3s Olympus EP-2 body with the 14-42mm kit lens and a VF-2 viewfinder. We talked for a few minutes, then I asked if I could hold his camera. What a revelation it was to think that I could have made almost every picture on my trip with that tiny rig.

I had been reading about micro 4/3s, so when I got home, I ordered an E-PL1, then later, a pair of E-M5s and some lenses. 

In 2017 I made the break complete, selling all my Canon stuff, and later, most of my m4/3s equipment and buying Fuji X-system bodies and lenses. I was surprised to find that a Fuji X-T20 is actually a little smaller than an Oly E-M5.

However, the size of the camera bodies is not really the issue. The problem is the size and weight of lenses for full-frame cameras. Sony A-series full-frame bodies are about the same size as my APS-C format Fuji X-T3, but when you add a working kit of lenses, the weight saved by the lighter body doesn't make much difference to the overall load. For almost anything you might need to do with a camera these days, full-frame bodies and lenses are simply overload.

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 $3.95 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 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   digital photography  Olympus E-M5 camera    Olympus OM1 camera     Fuji X-T20 camera   film photography    Canon digital cameras    micro 4/3s    APS-C     Fuji X-T3     Pentax 6x7 film camera     Olympus E-PL1 Olympus EP-2

Does Format Make a Difference?

Our pond on Deer Run Farm, MeLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

Nowadays, not as much as you might think. 

We had the picture you're looking at made into a 24x36-inch print to hang over our fireplace. It looks great. I have also had it printed 48 inches wide. Still looks great. It was made with an Olympus E-M5, a 16-megapixel digital camera with a tiny micro 4/3s sensor. The actual size of the sensor is 17.3x13 millimeters -- one fourth the size of a 35mm film frame.

Butterfly on azalea in our back yard, Deer Run Farm.

This is another file that was made into a 24x36-inch print. It was photographed with a Fuji X-T20, with a 24-megapixel sensor measuring 25.1x16.7 millimeters. About half the size of a frame of 35mm film. I wish you could see these pictures full size. The sharpness and resolution are superb.

Many blogs and podcasts will tell you that you need a full-frame sensor (24x36mm, the size of a 35mm film frame) to get high resolution files. That may have been true once, but no longer. Cameras made in the last few years combined with recently developed processing software have pretty much wiped out the difference. Even as far back as 2003, I discovered that my six megapixel APS-C Canon 10D could make a 16x20 print indistinguishable from one made from my medium-format Pentax 6x7 film camera. 

My friend Dennis Mook, who blogs at https:/thewanderinglensman.com/, owns cameras in all three formats: micro 4/3s, APS-C, and full-frame, so he did a test to see how much difference he could see in the actual files from his micro 4/3s Olympus OM1 and those from his full-frame Nikon Z8. 

The difference: not much. You can read about it here. (You should be reading his blog as a regular thing anyway.)

I began shooting micro 4/3s Olympus E-M5s alongside my full-frame Canons in 2012. In 2017 I sold the Canons and one E-M5 and switched to APS-C-frame Fujifilm cameras exclusively. I'm quite happy with the files they make. I'll tell you more about my thinking in the next post.

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 $3.95 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 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   digital photography  Olympus E-M5 camera    Olympus OM1 camera     Fuji X-T20 camera   Nikon Z8 camera    Canon digital cameras    micro 4/3s    APS-C     Canon 10D camera     Pentax 6x7 film camera