More about Sharpness, Bokeh, and Cheap Lenses

Pileated Woodpecker pair. Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230 f4.5-6.7 OIS lens,

310mm equivalent, 1/60th second, f6.7, ISO 800.

If I could be forgiven a bit of heresy. . .I believe that Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer) unleashed a monster upon the photo world back in the '90s when, as editor of the magazine Photo Technique, he published the article which introduced the concept of bokeh to the western world.

Bokeh, which has to do with the character of the out-of-focus areas in a photograph, began immediately to be conflated and confused with shallow depth-of-field

Shallow depth-of-field, which used to be just one of the tools in a competent photographer's toolbox; now has become a religious cult. Heaven help anyone who doesn't bow obeisance to it.

Although I know how to use shallow depth-of-field when the situation calls for it, I'm from another generation and usually prefer photographs that are relatively sharp from front to back.

Speaking of sharpness, I don't usually care for ultimate sharpness either. Heresy again, I know, but ultimate sharpness isn't very kind to faces. And even in other areas it isn't always desirable. When I made the photographs for my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era in the mid '90s, I chose to use 35mm film, even though the conventional wisdom would have been to use 4x5, or at least medium format. But these were old barns, and I wanted them to have a little atmosphere, not super-crispness in every detail. Even at that, the published photos were often mistaken for 4x5, or even, in one case, for 5x7 by a fellow professional.

In digital photography, the Canon original 5D provided more than enough image quality for my needs, even for landscapes and architecture. I later moved to a 6D, but that was mostly because it was smaller and lighter, and most especially because I no longer had to keep cleaning the sensor or zapping dust spots out of skies! (That was the bane of my existence when I was doing a substantial amount of architectural photography.) I guess I should also mention that by the time I made the switch, the 5D was eight years old. A true fossil in the digital age.

I'm sure some people may actually need the sharpest and fastest lenses available for the work they do, and I don't mean this unkindly; but I think that in many cases the striving for bigger, faster, and more expensive is a sidetrack; a diversion from what photography is all about: making pictures.

Around 2000, as I was closing out my downtown studio, another local commercial photographer came to look at my space with a view to renting it. He was a dedicated user of medium format and 4x5, and held 35mm in low regard. Looking at the framed 16x 20 and 20x24 photographs hanging on my studio walls, he would point at one and then another, asking on what format they were shot. He was somewhat scandalized and almost unable to believe that most of them had been shot on 35mm film. Finally, as he was about to leave, he pointed at one 20x24 portrait and said, "Now you can't tell me that was shot on 35mm!"

"Yes, Doug," I said, as he threw up his hands and left.

So what's my point? My point is that you don't always have to have the latest and the greatest. Reasonably good equipment, reasonably good technique, and a reasonably good idea of what you're trying to accomplish can add up to some pretty good photographs.

More-than-100% crop.

A note about the photograph(s). One day two years ago, my wife called me to look out the kitchen window. There, on a dying tree in the woods just across our driveway were a pair of rare pileated woodpeckers! I grabbed my Fuji X-T-20 and the longest lens I own, the 50-230 (75-345 in full-frame terms) and banged off a few shots. The 50-230 is definitely not one of Fuji's premium lenses, but it's small, light, sharp, and has good image stabilization.

In Praise of Cheap Lenses

I'm not a lens snob.

In fact, I mostly tune out the ad infinitum and ad nauseum discussions of rendering, edge sharpness, bokeh, etc., that seem to be the bread and butter of many blogs and web sites. I have difficulty seeing the fine distinctions they make, and wouldn't care much if I could. A lens is to take pictures with. If it does a reasonable job of that (as in, do the photos look okay?) nothing else is required.

I began my full-time professional career in 1978 with a pair of Nikkormats, a 50mm Nikkor, and two Vivitars -- 28mm f2.5 and 100mm f2.8. They were fine. A year or so later, I switched to the Olympus OM system, which I used for 12 years with great satisfaction. I had quite a few lenses for the OMs, and all were satisfactory except for the 35-70 f3.6. That one was a dog.

By 1993, aging eyes dictated a switch to autofocus, so I bought into the Canon EOS system and used various bodies and lenses for the next 24 years. Along the way, I used a number of L lenses, including the 28-80 f2.8-4L, the 28-70 f2.8L, and the 24-70 f2.8L (twice). I also owned the 24-104 f4L twice. But I kept going back to the 24-85 f3.5-4.5 and the 28-105 f3.5-4.5, neither of which is an L lens, but both are small and light, fast enough for the work I do,  and again, sharp enough for the work I do.

Not long after my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era was published, I walked into my local pro lab and found another photographer standing at the counter leafing through my book, which is in 9x12-inch coffee-table format. Having learned from the lab owner that I was the creator of the book, he asked if I had made the photos on 5x7-inch film. When I told him no, he said, "Oh, 4x5?" When I explained that all were made with 35mm cameras, he had difficulty believing it. But in fact, almost all the photos in the book were shot with the Canon EF 28-105 f3.5-4.5 or the 24mm f2.8. As Kirk Tuck says, there are very few lenses that aren't sharp at f8!

In 2017 I sold my Canon gear and bought into the Fuji system. I will tell you that I do not own their more expensive and highly rated lenses, but the ones I have do the job for me just fine.

I don't do many weddings these days, but here's a photo from a wedding in 2018, taken with a Fuji X-T20 and the 16-50 f3.5-5.6 kit lens at f8. 

Full frame: Fuji X-T20, 16-50 f3.5-5.6 kit lens at f8

100% crop The blogging process does not render the true sharpness of this photo. In the original the woman's eyelashes are very clearly delineated.

To quote Kirk Tuck again, "Very few lenses are not sharp at f8!"

The Gift

The Gospel of John, Chapter One

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. . .He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The empty tomb, Jerusalem, Israel

Why a photograph of a tomb instead of a baby in a manger? Because, although Christmas was the beginning, this tomb -- this empty tomb -- was always the destination, the validation of Jesus' life and sacrifice.

First Corinthians, Chapter Fifteen

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once.

 

The gift of God is eternal life, available to all and received by simple faith in Jesus Christ, who died to bear the penalty for all my sins and all of yours, was buried, and rose victorious over death and the grave.

The Fascination of Foreign Faces: Part III

The young scholar, Mayalan Village, Northern Guatemala

Fourth, be invisible.  This isn't a contradiction; it simply means working without calling unnecessary attention to yourself.  In crowds I practice invisiblity by avoiding direct eye contact.  That doesn't mean I avoid looking at people, but rather that I seem to look through and beyond them.  Locking eyes with individuals can cause them to feel singled out or threatened -- not a good thing in countries where political/cultural factors make it wise for most citizens to keep a low profile.  When  photographing people in this way I sometimes take the camera away from my eye after making the picture and continue to look toward but past the subject.  Very often he'll look around to see who or what I was photographing.

Another kind of invisibility occurs when you work in an open, straightforward, and businesslike way.  People will watch you carefully for signs of indecisiveness or fear.  When you project the attitude that you have a right to be there because you have a legitimate, worthwhile job to do, most people will relax and allow you to get on with your photography.  People in other countries are usually gracious, hospitable, and patient with strangers who observe the basic courtesies.

Fifth, be occupied.  Actually, this refers to the subject rather than you.  Often, the best time to photograph is when your subject is involved in an activity.  A parade, a fiesta, a sporting event, religious ceremonies, work, or play...whenever the subject is more interested in something else than he is in you, the time is right for good pictures.

I photograph frequently in classroom and worship situations where the people are fully aware of my presence.  What's more, against all the advice I've heard or read, I often do it with multiple flash.  Whenever possible, I have the person in charge introduce me and explain why I'm there.  Then I ask the people to continue with whatever they were doing as if I were not there.  I work slowly at first, while they check me out with sidelong glances; but they become used to my presence much more quickly than you would imagine and are once again fully involved in their activity, yet with an awareness which produces a kind of hyper-intentness and concentration.  I almost always get pictures with heightened emotional and dramatic impact in such situations.

Shopkeeper, Madras, India

Even more than making photographs of people engrossed in activity, I like to make portraits of them looking into the camera.  I want to look, and help others look through  their eyes and into their souls.  To make a personal connection with them through my photography.

It isn't difficult to make great portraits of people in most foreign environments,

but there aren't many people doing it.  The principles in this article have been tested

around the world and they will work for you if you will use them.  You can learn to relate

to people and make portraits which will express their dignity and humanity and at the

same time express and satisfy something deep within yourself.

Foreign faces are endlessly fascinating, because they are the faces of our family.

The Fascination of Foreign Faces: Part II

Fisherman's Family, Madras, India

So how does one go about making good pictures of people in foreign settings?  It isn't hard if you're prepared.  Here are some basic principles of people photography which have worked as well for me in African villages as on the streets of London.

First, be organized.  Know what you want to accomplish and plan how you're going to do it.  Make decisions about cameras, lenses, and films before leaving home.  Become so familiar with your equipment that you can use it almost without thinking.  Aging eyes and general laziness make zoom lenses on Canon EOS bodies my mainstay these days, but some of my best people photos were made with Olympus OM bodies and prime lenses in 24, 35, 85, and 180mm focal lengths.

My camera bag stays at the hotel, while two bodies with (nowadays) 24-85 and 70-200 lenses go over my shoulders.  Film, caption notebook, passport, local currency, and a few U.S. one-dollar bills go in a small belt pouch.  I'm light, mobile, and organized to give full attention to the subject.

           

It's also essential to be organized in the way you go about making photographs once you have some kind of entree with a subject.  People in other countries are can be amazingly gracious and patient, but it's an imposition to ask them to stand for several minutes while you work them over with a spot meter and make multiple lens changes.  Both common courtesy and good photographic practice dictate that you decide about exposure, angles, and focal lengths before approaching the subject, and then make your photographs in a friendly, businesslike manner.  Before I spoke to the young craftswoman I had already decided which lenses would be needed, mounted them on my cameras, and read the light with an incident meter.  I was ready to work quickly, fluidly, and with a confidence that communicated itself to my subject, helping her to be more at ease and responsive.

           

Second, be obvious.  An American with a camera in a Guatemalan village marketplace is conspicuous.  There's nothing you can do to change that.  Everyone knows you're there, so don't try to sneak shots.  They're probably more curious about you than you are about them.  If you try to hide in the shadows and pick off shots with a long lens, if you're furtive, if you appear indecisive or uncertain, you'll be greeted with suspicion.  Accept the fact that you're not going to get fly-on-the-wall candids and go with the flow.  Concentrate on what you can get.  Because if you treat those people with courtesy and friendliness, chances are you'll be able to make both excellent photographs and new friends at the same time.  The key is simply to be natural.  Behave as if you have a perfect right to be there and go about your work in a pleasant, matter-of-fact way.

Coffee Plantation Worker with His Pet Rabbit, Costa Rica

Third, be open.  Fear is the number one hindrance to good people photography.  For that matter, fear of being open and vulnerable is the greatest hindrance in most human relationships.  Fear often comes in the form of an inertia which suggests all kinds of reasons why you shouldn't take the picture now.  Later will be better.  The light will be better.  The people will be more receptive.  You don't have the right lens.  Or the right film.  Later...but not now.  If you want to make good photographs of people, you must put aside your fear and inertia by an act of your will and begin to photograph -- now.  Not later -- now! 

What does this have to do with being open?  Everything, because people will not open up to you until you open yourself up to them.  Put aside your fear of photographing them openly.  Project sincere attitudes of  friendliness and courtesy.  Don't talk any more than necessary.  A smile will open more doors than words any day.  These are not aliens from another galaxy -- they're people, and they will respond to your efforts to relate to them as people.  A smile, an eyebrow raised in question, a tilt of the camera, a word of greeting in the local language (if you haven't bothered to learn the words for "hello," "please," and "thank you" in their language you shouldn't even be there) will usually gain the cooperation you need.  If not, just smile, say "thank you," and move on.  My few words of Tamil spoken to the young woman nearly exhausted my meager vocabulary, but when combined with an open,  friendly approach they were enough to do the job.

(To be continued)

The Fascination of Foreign Faces

Images for Sale. Madras, India

"Wannakil" --"hello," I said with a smile, right hand in front of my face with fingers up, palm slightly out in the South Indian gesture of casual greeting.

"Wannakil," replied the attractive young Indian woman, continuing to paint intricate details on a small plaster Hindu temple for her sidewalk statuary stall.  Her husband and small child watched the tall, bearded foreigner with friendly interest from a nearby tent.

Still smiling and with a question in my eyes, I tilted my camera slightly.  With a pleased smile, she nodded as I gestured to indicate that she should go on with her work.  As she did, I began my work also, making exposures from several different angles, then changing to a second camera body with a wider lens for a few more frames.

The Image Painter. Madras, India

 "Nandri" -- "thank you," I said with a repeat of the salute-type gesture.  She responded in kind, we both smiled, and I moved on down the street in search of other opportunities to make brief but no less genuine personal contacts with the people of India.

As a photojournalist and producer creating magazine features and audio-visual programs to help religious and humanitarian agencies communicate their mission, I'm always looking for opportunities to make portraits.  Strong photographs of people add power to the message I want to communicate, because people are interested in people.  That's why we call it "human interest."  When someone from another culture is portrayed in all of his or her humanity, dignity, and individuality, both the subject and those who view the photograph are served.  As the great Edward Steichen, creator of the landmark "Family of Man" exhibit said, "The function of photography is to explain man to man."

Mayan Tribesman. Northern Guatemala

Photography bypasses the logical centers of the brain and communicates directly to the heart.  When the subject is someone from another culture, an incisive portrait can arouse in the viewer a deep awareness that this also is a person, a member of my species.  Different from me, yes, but part of my family.  Nearly 30 years have passed, but I still remember the first time a photograph connected with me in this way.  It was an Emil Schultheiss portrait of an African girl in the old Modern Photography magazine.  Her face plastered with ceremonial paint, she peeked at the camera from the corners of her eyes.  I looked into her soul and was hooked for good.

(To be continued.  This article was first published in Rangefinder Magazine.)

(All photos with Olympus OM cameras and lenses, Fujichrome 100 film.) 

 

The Economics of Film

U.S. 41A, Webster County, Kentucky

If you pay attention to such things, you may have noticed that all the photographs I've shown so far were shot on film. There's a reason for that: I photographed on film for the first 35 years of my career before making the transition to digital photography 16 years ago.

In my work as a documentary and commercial photographer, transparency (slide) film was always my preferred medium and was also usually required by my clients. I have shot many thousands of rolls. Fujichrome Professional 100D, is my all-time favorite film.

I've also processed thousands of rolls of slide film, using Kodak or Unicolor chemistry in a Unicolor Film Drum with a motor base and a home-made water bath with a fish-tank heater to keep the chemicals up to temp. (Although only the first developer is temperature-critical.) Later, we had a King Concepts processor in the studio, which made things a little more efficient.

When working, almost every situation was evaluated with a Minolta incident meter, and exposures were bracketed over a one and a half stop range in half-stops. Most of the time the half-stop under exposure was the selected one. I also used filters extensively, especially warming ones, to render as nearly as possible the feel of each scene on the film.

I was a very precise and careful photographer in those days, even in situations where I had to work quickly. There was no way to "fix it in post," so if I didn't get the scene on film the way I wanted it, too bad. Digital has made it easy to become sloppy.

Actually, photography was much more satisfying and fun when I shot film. But there are other considerations. For example:

For my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia (Countryman Press, 2017), I traveled more than 10,000 miles around the state over the course of a year and made more than 4,200 digital exposures, which equates to about 118 rolls of film.

Since my cameras and lenses were already paid for, those 4,200 exposures essentially cost me nothing. If I had been using slide film (Provia, from B&H at $10 per roll), those exposures would have cost me $1,180. A gallon of E6 chemistry from Arista costs $80 and can process about 40 rolls. That's around $240 for processing. Not cheap, but much cheaper than a lab.

So if I had processed the film myself, which I could easily have done, total cost for film and processing would have been about $1400. Probably a good bit more than that, actually, because if I had been shooting film I would have bracketed, which is not usually necessary when shooting digitally in RAW mode.

I received a reasonably generous advance from the publisher, but that also had to cover gas, lodging, and food. Adding in film and processing costs would have stretched it a little too far.

And of course, there's also the time cost. Processing all that film takes time. Fortunately, I can edit slides on the light box, which is certainly as fast as editing on computer, but then there's also scanning time. Lots of scanning time. About 225 photos were used in the book, but I had to submit more than that to give the editor some choices. It all adds up.

But do I think the book would have been better if I had shot it on film? Yeah, I really do. With film, I could have used filters to render the ambiance, the feel of the light in a scene much more effectively than I have been able to do with digital photography. Maybe there's a way to do that, but I haven't figured it out yet.

So, could the book have been better? I think so, but I might be the only one to notice.

(Canon EOS A2, 28-105 f3.5-4.5 Canon EF lens, Fujichrome 100. Cokin #85 filter to capture the feel of the early light.)

The Assignment of a Lifetime: Part II

Horse Laugh, U.S. Hwy. 11, McMinn County, Tennessee

(Continued)

Sorting Rock City's old file cards by states and within states by highways, I planned an itinerary for my first trip and began photographing at Sweetwater, Tennessee on October 24, 1994.  Over the next 18 months, stealing time whenever my studio schedule allowed, the trail of barns led my old Chevy Blazer nearly 35,000 miles to more than 500 sites in 15 Southeastern and Midwestern states.  Nearly 250 barns were found in 14 states, with only Michigan proving barren.

With 35-year-old, often sketchy records and occasional hearsay reports as my only sources of information, finding the sites was an endlessly fascinating piece of detective work.  Barns have burned, blown down, been bulldozed for highway construction and subdivisions, or simply fallen from disuse and disrepair.  Many of the largest and finest are gone. To complicate things still further, highways have been changed, re-routed, and re-named.

Often, the only way to locate a site was to find someone who remembered the property owner:

"Do you remember so-and-so, who had a place out on Highway 11 south of here?"

"Oh, yeah, knew him well.  He and my daddy used to go fishin' together all the time.  Good ol' feller.  He's dead now."

"Well, he had this barn on his farm, with a sign that said 'See Rock City.'  Here's an old picture of it."

"Sure, I remember that ol' barn.  Fact is, I helped him take it down, back around 1975.  It had got all rotten and falling down, y'know.  Weren't safe."

I also learned to take the information I was given with a grain of salt.  The people most familiar with an area are often the least observant.  In Robbinsville, North Carolina I asked a gas station attendant about a barn.  "Oh, sure," he said, "It was just down the road here, about a half mile.  But it's been torn down."  Checking for myself, I found his directions to the site were perfect.  But not only was the barn still standing, it had just been repainted and was one of the rare barns with "See Rock City" signs on both sides!

In those pre-digital days, of course, everything was photographed on film, mostly Fujichrome 100. I began the project with a pair of Canon EOS-10S bodies and one EOS-RT and gradually upgraded my equipment so that by the time I finished I was working with two Canon A2s and a 10S.  Lenses carried were the 70-210mm f4, the 28-105mm f3.5-4.5, the 50mm f1.8, the 35mm f2, and the 24mm f2.8, all Canon EF.  Probably 90% of the photographs were made with the 24 and the 28-105.  Exposures were almost always read with a Minolta Flashmeter III in incident mode. Color filters were used frequently to render scenes the way I felt them.

Each barn was also photographed in black and white. (Pre-digital days, remember?)

An average day of photography might involve driving more than 450 miles in 12 to 15 hours, and result in locating eight or ten sites, of which three to five might have barns.  Some days were better than that, of course, and some were much worse.  I spent a total of about 75 days on the assignment, capturing images in winter snow, summer haze, the soft light of spring and the clear light of autumn. Working the sweet early and late light in midsummer meant 18-hour days and not much sleep.

I began the project with some idealism, I suppose. Expecting to find prosperous, story-book farmyards, I often found depressing scenes of rural desolation.  Most of the barns were far from any farmhouse.  Many were dilapidated, some were overgrown with brush.  I learned to take whatever each situation gave me and tried to use that to make a photograph which expressed the spirit of the place

What began as the assignment of a lifetime grew into a labor of love as I came to treasure the dignity and individuality of each old barn.  I learned to see beauty even in the isolation in which so many of them are ending their days.  I learned that they wanted to be photographed in a direct, documentary way, without artifice.  They seemed to say, "Here we are.  This is the way we are.  Please let us speak for ourselves."

(Canon EOS 10S. 24mm f2.8 Canon EF lens. Fujichrome 100 film.)

The Assignment of a Lifetime

U.S. 165, Morehouse Parrish, Louisiana

In Indiana, a black cat wound itself around the legs of an old farmer and looked up at me, eyes gleaming in the early light.  In Louisiana, a yellow locomotive emerged from behind a barn just at the right time, under just the right kind of sky.  In Tennessee, a pony positioned himself in front of a barn, threw back his head, and gave me the horse laugh.  Serendipity, which by definition is capricious and unpredictable, became a welcome and almost expected companion as time and again I traveled all day under overcast skies which opened to bathe a barn in rays as I arrived, then closed again.  It was my dream project, the assignment of a lifetime.  And it began with three little words: "Let's do it!"

The man who spoke them was Bill Chapin, president of Rock City Gardens, a tourist attraction near Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Behind the words, a lifetime dream: to create a book about the old barns whose painted message, "See Rock City" became one of the greatest outdoor advertising campaigns of all time.  They launched me on a project that was to occupy much of my time and effort for the next three years and affect my life and business profoundly. 

It began with Bill's great-uncle, entrepreneur Garnet Carter, who laid out trails and swinging bridges through ten acres of massive rock formations on the cliffs of Lookout Mountain overlooking Chattanooga.  Hoping to regain his depression-lost fortune, he opened Rock City Gardens to the public in 1932, but unfortunately nobody much came.  Not until 1936 did things improve, when he hired an enterprising young sign painter named Clark Byers to travel the length and breadth of the land painting "See Rock City" on the roof or side of every barn whose owner would allow it.  So diligent and successful was he that as many as 900 barns in 19 states may have carried the Rock City slogan over the years, making it famous around the globe. 

 

The retirement of Byers in 1968, coupled with changing highway sign laws and the completion of the Interstate system brought about a drastic reduction in the barn painting program, as Rock City began to rely on other forms of advertising -- which ultimately brought me into the picture.  As a commercial photographer with a studio in Chattanooga, I began working for the attraction in the early '80s, photographing for brochures and other advertising.  In 1988, Bill told me of his long-held dream of a book about Rock City's barns and asked me to find out what it would cost.

Although he decided not to proceed at that time, my interest was kindled.  I obtained a list of the 110 barns they were still maintaining, and whenever my travels brought me near one I made a photograph of it if possible.  In 1994, after learning that the barns being maintained by Rock City had dwindled to 85, I went back to Chapin with my photos and told him that if he wanted to do a book, this was the time.

He didn't say much.  Just looked at the pictures for about 15 minutes, asked a few questions, then said the magic words: "Let's do it!"

       

A few days later I received a box containing hundreds of old file cards, the only record of most barn locations.  On each card was the name of the last known property owner, the highway route number, 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 each 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 the barns since the late '60s.  The only way to find out if they were still standing was to go and see. 

 

So I went.

(Canon EOS-A2, 28-105 f3.5-4.5 Canon EF lens, Fujichrome 100 film.)

He's back. . .!

Demented Spider, Walker County, GA

Who starts a blog, posts six days in a row, then disappears for eight years?

Umm. . .that would be me.

I began this blog in a burst of enthusiasm, kindled by the fact that I had just finished a major book project. But, it soon fell prey to my lack of personal discipline, coupled with the fact that it took more time than I really wanted to commit at that time. So, I'm back. At least for now, and I hope I can find the discipline to continue, because I do have some things I want to say.

It would have been less embarrassing to just start a new blog from scratch and not have to go through the mea culpa bit, but I like the name of this blog, and I like the things I've written, even though that was eight years ago. So here I am.

So, what have I been doing? Photographing, of course, because that's what I do. Still doing some commercial work, although not as much as I used to. But then, I don't pursue it like I used to. Also, I photographed and wrote another book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, published by Countryman Press of New York in 2017. More about that in future posts.

So what brings me back? Well, I've wanted to come back for a long time, but was finally inspired to give it another try by a post titled You Should Start a Blog on Jim Grey's blog Down the Road (https://blog.jimgrey.net/ 

I hope to keep things going by posting two or three times a week, and I hope you'll enjoy it enough to come along for the ride.

(Canon EOS A2, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 Canon EF lens, Fujichrome 100 film.)