Breakfast at Susie's Sunset Cafe
(Click to enlarge)
The name of Susie’s Café on the square in beautiful downtown LaFayette, Georgia was officially Susie’s Sunset Café. But I always thought it should have been named Susie’s Sunrise Café, because the early morning sun streamed in through the plate-glass front windows and illuminated everything all the way to the back wall.
Susie’s had booths down each side for those who preferred a feeling of relative privacy, but it also had a couple of long tables down the center where lawyers, businessmen, farmers, factory workers, and gas station attendants ate their breakfasts together and chewed the fat (no reflection on the bacon or sausage) in amiable equality.
Susie's has been gone for several years now, replaced by a Japanese restaurant, and LaFayette is the poorer for its loss. Places like Susie's are the heart and soul of country towns.
On a technical note, the photograph was made with an Olympus SPn rangefinder camera with a non-interchangeable 40mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia RD 100 film. I had noticed the potential for this picture sometime previously, but it took more than one attempt to get myself seated in the best position with the most interesting combination of people in place. No one noticed me as I made a few exposures with my small camera from a booth to one side.
(Photograph and text adapted from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.)
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(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)
Soli Gloria Deo
To the glory of God alone
I see a Norman Rockwell painting. I should say it could be. The light, the composition the interaction of the subjects - its all there. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Unknown. You're not the first to compare this photograph to a Norman Rockwell painting.
ReplyDelete