Another Definitive Portrait

Choral Director Glenn Draper

In an earlier post I described a definitive portrait as closely related to the editorial portrait, but going deeper, showing not only what the person looks like, but also revealing something about his or her character.

This portrait of the distinguished choral director Glenn Draper was made in my first studio around 1986 when he was at the height of his career. Dr. Draper's accomplishments are truly too numerous to list in one blog post. He was director of music at First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga for 30 years, while also heading up the Choral Activities program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He was director of music at the Lake Junaluska United Methodist Conference Center for 55 years and organized and directed choral groups such as the UTC Singing Mocs and the Glenn Draper Singers, which he directed in a performance at the White House while in his mid-80s.

I was transitioning from Kodachrome 64 to Fujichrome around the time I made this portrait and had to dig the original slide out of my files to see which film I had used. It was Fujichrome. I loved the warmth and clarity of Kodachrome, but Fujichrome is also a beautiful film, especially the original RDP100. As you can see.

Fuji eventually won the day because I could get it processed in a few hours at a local lab or process it myself, while Kodachrome had to be sent away to a Kodak lab and had a turnaround time of several days. Over the years I processed thousands of rolls of Fujichrome, using Unicolor or Kodak E-6 chemistry in a Unicolor film drum or later, in a King Concepts film processor.

For this portrait I seated Dr. Draper in front of a blue, seamless paper background lighted by one small flash, and placed a more powerful flash in an umbrella in front and somewhat to his left. (This was before I began using soft boxes.) A reflector on the camera side completed the setup. The camera was an Olympus OM, probably the OM2n, but I don't remember for sure. The lens would have been the Zuiko 85mm f2, my favorite lens at the time.

This was an easy session. Although a man of great accomplishment, Glenn was warm and gracious. Also, I knew him personally, having sung in his choir at First Presbyterian.

As for using 35mm for portraits -- I was doing it in the 1980s and '90s, when 'most every one in my market was using medium format. Around 2000, as I was closing my last studio, another 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 esteem. Looking at the framed 16x 20 and 20x24 photographs hanging on my studio walls, he would point at one and then another, asking what format I had used. 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.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

A Fond Farewell to Canon

"Faceoff"  Georgia Highway 122, Ware County

A Canon EOS 5D Classic photo from my limited edition book

Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

This photo is printed as a "double truck" -- 24 inches wide, in the book.

 

 I'm glad to see Canon kicking things up a few notches with their new R5 and R6 releases, but I won't be coming along for the ride. (To mix a few metaphors.) 

I began using Canon in 1993, first their film cameras, and then making the move with them to digital in 2003. After a series of 10Ds, 20Ds, and 30Ds, in 2006 I bought the original 5D (now known as the "Classic," and for good reason) and used it with considerable satisfaction for the next eight years. To me there was something distinctive about the files from that camera. Some have called them "filmlike." This is all subjective, of course, but I guess that's as good an explanation as any. Whatever. The photos look good and that's all that really counts.

I was happy with my Canons. They were totally reliable and the image quality was great, but gradually a pair of bodies and three or four lenses, especially the pro zooms, became a heavier package than I wanted to carry. At six-one and 210 pounds I am not your basic 97-pound weakling, but I just don't like to carry unnecessary weight.

My youngest brother Phil, a superlative bird photographer, recently showed me his brand new Canon R5 full-frame mirrorless body. Sleek and compact, it fit my hand perfectly.  But am I tempted? No. Smaller and lighter than the 5D4, or even the 6D, these new bodies are really nice. They are. But they don't tempt me, because they won't work without lenses and the lenses still weigh a ton. Same thing with the Sonys, A lightweight body doesn't help much unless you're going to carry just one, with a smallish prime lens.

Actually, I bade Canon farewell in 2017 when I switched to the Fuji X system. Small cameras and small lenses, with little or no loss of image quality. But I still have a soft spot for Canon. You can't just wipe out 24 years of good experiences. 

Earlier this year I picked up an X-H1. It's slightly larger and heavier than my other Fuji bodies, and the handling felt a bit strange as first. But I quickly became acclimated, and now it feels just right. The more I use it, the better I like it. This thing is so solid and well-built that I may never need another camera. It offers higher quality and more capability for less money than any camera I've ever heard of. 

As Mike Johnston The Online Photographer said, "It strikes me as a simply amazing camera; virtually everything on it is well thought out and beautifully implemented, and works smoothly and effectively." 

So a belated fond farewell to Canon. My Canons served me well and I wish the company continued success.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Two Red Chairs

Red Chairs, Hahira, Georgia

Canon EOS 20D, 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens

After a number of successful years as a creative director/design editor for several different organizations and publications, Michael Largent and his wife Debbie moved from Atlanta to Chattanooga to be closer to her aging parents. The transition to a much smaller market was a difficult one for Michael, as it was some time before he was able to find a position with a salary appropriate to his very considerable skills. 

Michael had a venerable Honda Accord which had been carefully maintained by a mechanic friend who owned an independent Honda repair shop in Atlanta. About the time Michael moved to Chattanooga, the mechanic friend went on semi-retired status, moved to Hahira (pronounced "Hay-HI-ra") a village just north of Valdosta, Georgia, and bought a home with an oversize garage complete with hydraulic lift in the backyard, just to keep his hand in the game. 

In January, 2007, Michael's Honda developed major engine problems. Since his longtime mechanic friend offered him a deal he couldn't refuse, he asked me if we could load his car on my flatbed trailer and haul it to Hahira. I knew my trailer and Dodge Grand Caravan were up to the job because I routinely used the rig to carry three 1200-pound round bales of hay at a time to feed my cattle, so I said okay. Besides, he was buying the gas, and who could resist a road trip with a good friend? 

The trip south on Interstate 75 was uneventful. We deposited the Honda at the mechanic's new home, which was actually in the country a few miles from Hahira, and while Michael and his friend were talking things over in the backyard I walked around the house and liked the look of two red lawn chairs on the front porch. 

Old Mount Zion Baptist Church

U.S. Highway 41, Dooly County, Georgia

Canon EOS 5D Classic, 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens

 

Coming home, we drove up U.S. Highway 41, where I made several more photos I liked, including the one of the wide porch in Cordele and this one of Old Mount Zion Baptist Church. These and some others from the trip are included in my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

The name "Hay-HI-ra" lends itself to puns, at least to my mind, but unfortunately I can no longer use them because my newest granddaughter-in-law, the very lovely Jenn Robinson Jenkins, is from there. 

Who could have imagined it? Lose some, win some.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Three in a Row

 

 Apparently the owner was having a yard sale the second time I photographed this barn. When I first found it, there was a row of smaller sheds built onto the left side of the barn which made the sign a little more difficult to see. 

Canon EOS A2, 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome RDP100 film

 

When working on the book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, a box of age-yellowed file cards was my guidebook to finding the old barns with "See Rock City" signs. The very cards that once were used by Clark Byers and his crew of barn painters themselves. 

When I began the project I assumed that all the barn locations were included on the cards and that there were no others. However, as I traveled around the southeast and midwest on my search, I found about 20 barns for which there were no file cards. They had been lost from Rock City's records. I called them "lost barns." 

My usual way of traveling to a barn location was that if there was an interstate that paralleled the old highway where the barn was (presumably) located, I would drive the interstate to save time, get off at the nearest exit, photograph the barn if it was still there, and get back on the interstate. 

After my Rock City Barns  book was published in 1996, I began to receive postcards and letters about other lost barns. I tracked them down and photographed them as I had opportunity. 

One afternoon as I was driving down Interstate 24 on my way home from Nashville, it occurred to me that there were stretches of highway that I might have overlooked because of getting on and off the interstate instead of driving the old roads to see what might be there. I immediately got off I-24 south of Murfreesboro, went over to U.S. Highway 41, which paralleled the interstate, and headed south. I found the first unlisted barn in less than a mile. And not only that -- it was one of the very rare barns with the message "T'would be a Pity to Miss Rock City."   

 And then I found another one a half-mile or so south of that, both on the left side of 41. 

If I had been watching carefully I would have found a third barn just another half-mile south, but on the right side of the road. As it was, I didn't learn of it until years later, when Brent Moore, who has interesting blogs at http://seemidtn.blogspot.com/ (See Middle Tennessee), and http://see-rock-city.blogspot.com/ (See Rock City), told me about it. I photographed it in 2014 and again in 2019. As you can see, it deteriorated considerably in five years. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

America's Funkiest Town Hall

 The Barnesville, Georgia City Hall

Canon EOS 6D, 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens

 

On October17, 1884, sparks from a passing train ignited bales of cotton stacked beside the tracks behind the Summers Cotton Warehouse. The resulting blaze decimated downtown Barnesville, Georgia, consuming 33 businesses and several residences. 

The town quickly rebuilt, including a new fire station at Forsyth and Jackson Streets, with town offices on the second floor and the jail in the rear. 

In 1866, a blacksmith named Jackson G. Smith had begun manufacturing buggies in Barnesville. His business grew, and other companies were also formed to build buggies and peripheral equipment such as harness and wheels. By 1900 nearly 9,000 buggies per year were being built in Barnesville, more than anywhere else in the south. Unfortunately, the buggy industry gave way to the automobile around 1910.    

As time passed, the fire station and jail were moved to other locations and the building on Forsyth Street was fully occupied by city offices. In 1932 the city clock was moved to the bell tower of City Hall, completing what surely must be the funkiest city hall in the entire United States. Totally fitting for a town once known as the "Buggy Capitol of the South," and which hosts an annual Buggy Days Festival each September. 

Just a block farther along from City Hall, at the intersection of Forsyth and Main Streets, is the office and commissary of Jackson G. Smith Barnesville Buggies. Currently they're selling cell phones.

Times change. 

 Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

The Lost Art of Porch-Sitting

Front porch, U.S. 41, Cordele, Georgia

Canon EOS 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens 

 

 A traditional wraparound porch just north of downtown on U.S. Highway 41, the "main drag" through Cordele, Georgia. Now relegated to backroad status by nearby Interstate 75, Highway 41 and similar routes are showcases of an earlier time in America, and especially in the South, when the more affluent built their homes along the main streets of their towns, usually on the north or east side of downtown.

(An exception is Barnesville, Georgia, where the fine homes are mostly south of downtown along Thomaston Street in the Thomaston Street Historic District.) 

Once upon a time Southerners built gracious houses with wide, wraparound porches, often called verandahs. The porches helped keep their houses cool by preventing the sun from beaming directly in through the windows during the heat of the day, and in the evenings after a bit of breeze picked up, they were places to sit in rocking chairs and swings for leisurely chats with friends over tall glasses of ice tea. 

Air-conditioning and television ended all that. Nowadays porch-sitting is pretty much a lost art and we are poorer for the loss. 

(This post was adapted from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.) 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

The Editorial Portrait

Financial consultant John White for Financial Planning Magazine.

 

In my post about the definitive portrait I listed several other kinds of portraits a photographer may be called upon to do -- the casual portrait, the personal or studio portrait, the business portrait, the corporate portrait, and the editorial portrait.

The editorial portrait, which, as the name implies is usually assigned by a magazine or newspaper, is intended to give insight into who the person is and what he or she does.

One of my favorite assignments of this type was a portrait of financial consultant John White, who had written an article for Financial Planning Magazine. Distinguished graphic designer and long-time friend Michael Largent, the design editor of the magazine at the time, sent me to West Palm Beach, where the obviously successful Mr. White had a very nice home on a golf course. 

Michael's concept was to photograph Mr. White against a background of blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Not trusting Mother Nature to provide the appropriate setting, he had a large canvas background painted in New York and shipped to me in Florida. 

His skepticism was justified, because the sky was overcast on the day I was scheduled to make the portrait. I set up the painted background in White's garage, lighted the subject and background with my portable studio flash kit, and went to work with my Hasselblad medium format camera and Fujichrome RDP100 film.

However, after shooting a few rolls of film, it was obvious to me that things weren't working at all. 

Having read White's article as a basic part of preparation for this assignment, I felt his advice to the financial world could be summed up metaphorically as "The skies appear to be clearing but don't put your umbrellas away quite yet." 

With that sixth sense that sometimes comes to the aid of photographers (serendipity?), I had put my red golf umbrella in the car that morning, although there was no rain in the forecast. I retrieved the umbrella from the car and asked Mr. White if we could take a short walk on the golf course. Finding a good spot by a lake, I gave him the open umbrella and made the photograph with a 50mm wide angle lens. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

The World's Longest Yard Sale

If you think all the bargains are on eBay, think again. 

 

 

Could I interest you in taking a leisurely drive through beautiful country and examining close-up a slice right out of the middle of middle-America, while at the same time doing some prime bargain hunting? Hit the road next August for the world's longest yard sale. And take your camera. 

The York Grist Mill on the Wolf River at Pall Mall, Tennessee

was operated by World War I hero Sergeant Alvin York until

his death in 1964. It is part of the Sergeant Alvin C. York State

Historic Park, which also includes his home.

 

The epitome of the two-lane U.S. Highways which bound mid-20^th century America together in a network of asphalt ribbons, U.S. Highway 127 winds its way in obscurity from Michigan to its terminus in Chattanooga, Tennessee for 51 weeks each year, quietly going about its job of linking small towns in the heart of America’s heartland. But for one glorious weekend each summer, old 127 puts on its party clothes and welcomes hordes of bargain-hunters to an unique celebration: the world's longest yard sale, where you can buy anything from toys to tractors.

 In the earlier years of this century and the late 20th century, I spent some time photographing various segments of what was then known as the 450-Mile Yard Sale, culminating in 2005 with a three-day trip from its southern end at Gadsden, Alabama on the Lookout Mountain Parkway, to its northern end, which was then Covington, Kentucky. It's grown since then, and now runs on north through mostly rural Ohio all the way to Hudson, Michigan; a total of 690 miles. 

 

Officially known as the 127 Sale, the event began in 1987 as the brainchild of Mike Walker, a Fentress County, Tennessee official who hoped to draw visitors from the interstates to the backroads. A route was planned in Tennessee and Kentucky and a list was compiled of nearby attractions for people to visit, as well as shopping the sales.

The web sites for the 127 Sale are 127sale.com and 127yardsale.com. The 2021 sale will be August 5-8. 

All photos Canon EOS 20D, Canon 24-85 f3.5-4.5EF lens.

 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

U.S. Highway 62 and Another Lost Rock City Barn

"Lost" Rock City Barn on Old U.S. 62 (Ripley Road), Brown County, Ohio.

Canon EOS A2, Canon EOS 70-210mm f4 zoom lens

(Click to enlarge)

U.S. Highway 62 is an interesting, even unique road. Although designated an east-west route, it meanders from its eastern end at the Canadian border at Niagara Falls in northwestern New York, across the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania and into Ohio, where it pursues a mostly southerly course before joining U.S. Highways 52 and 68 near Ripley to share a bridge across the Ohio River. Once in Kentucky, 62 splits from Highway 68, goes a little further south, then trends west and southwest, ultimately, after coursing 2,248 miles through ten states, terminating at the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas. 

Did I say U.S. 62 is unique? It is the only U.S. highway that connects Canada and Mexico. 

In these days of super highways U.S. 62 is relatively obscure, so it might seem a bit strange that Rock City would have sent its crew to paint the "See Rock City" message on barns along that route. But before the network of interstate highways began to cover the country in the 1960s it was a major thoroughfare, connecting parts of Canada, upstate New York, western Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio with U.S. Highway 27 at Cynthiana, Kentucky, from whence southbound travelers could go on to Florida (and not coincidentally) through Chattanooga. 

On my first official barn photography foray in October, 1994, I went north on U.S. 27 to Cynthiana, and then east on 62 to Mt. Olivet, photographing three barns along the way; none of which was particularly photogenic. I did not revisit Highway 62 until the morning of September 26, 1995, when I crossed a bridge that carried U.S. Highways 52, 62, and 68 over the Ohio River near Ripley, photographed a barn just south of the town, and went looking for a barn on my list that was on an old alignment of U.S. 68. I stopped to ask directions of two farmers standing by a pickup truck. 

They didn't know about the barn I was looking for, (I did eventually find it) but one of them said, "Y'know, there's Mr. Eammons' barn over on Ripley Road -- that's old Highway 62 -- it's got some writin' on it."

Mr. Eammons barn turned out to be a compact tobacco barn with a tractor parked inside, and it did indeed have some writin' on it: "See 7 States from Rock City near Chattanooga, TN." Best of all, it was a "lost barn" -- one that had been lost from Rock City's records. 

The morning light wasn't right, but I made some photographs for the record, knowing that this barn had great potential if I could come back near sunset.

However, that didn't happen until three weeks later. Early on the morning of October 18, I visited the farm of Clarence Spindler just north of Evansville, in southwestern Indiana, and made thisphoto. Then I got on Interstate 64 and beat feet across southern Indiana and Ohio, arriving just before sunset; just in time to make the photograph you see above. One of my very favorite Rock City barns.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone