Off to Florida (Finally)

Old Queen Anne House in Valdosta, Georgia

 Finally, almost two months later than planned, we are off to Florida! It has been seven weeks since Louise broke her hip, and she is doing well. She walks without difficulty and without a limp, but tires easily and sometimes is more comfortable using a cane or a walker.

We have been staying with a lifelong friend at Fayetteville, south of Atlanta, for the past week while repairs to our trailer were being completed (principally to replace one of the awnings).

In the morning we are leaving for Valdosta, where we'll spend one night, then on to our campground in west central Florida, where we hope to spend at least a month.  

The old house above was photographed in 2011, on my tour around Georgia for my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. The house is a few blocks south of the courthouse and I have been told it's still standing and may even still be lived in. I can't find any other information about it.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

The Japanese Magnolia at the Graysville House

Japanese Magnolia blossoms carpet the lawn

of the 1800s Gray House, Graysville, Georgia

 

From 1970 to '75 we lived in a subdivision in the East Brainerd section of Chattanooga, about a half-mile from the Tennessee-Georgia line. We were a young family then, and very active, frequently taking long walks or bike-rides around the area with our two boys.

Just over the state line was the village of Graysville, laid out in the 1840s by John Gray, the English-born contractor who dug the railroad tunnel at Tunnel Hill and liked the Northwest Georgia area so much that he bought 4,000 acres on Chickamauga Creek. He built the Queen Anne-style Gray House, dammed the creek, and built a large, three-story mill.

Every spring we rode our bikes to Graysville, hoping to find blossoms on the magnificent Japanese magnolia tree which sat beside the Gray House.

Most years we were disappointed, because those were the days when the environmentalists had their undies in a wad because of global cooling. Frost usually bit the blossoms before they could reach full bloom. Fortunately, global warming came to the rescue, and now we are treated most years to the sight of the largest Japanese magnolia I've ever seen, in glorious, full bloom.

(Speaking of global cooling/warming/climate change, I have one question for environmentalists: What, exactly, is the ideal temperature for the earth?)

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

On the Road Again (kinda-sorta)

Florida Sunset (Key Biscayne)

Louise broke her hip on January 5th and had surgery the next day. It's now been more than six weeks and she has been released by her doctor. She is walking very well, but sometimes still finds it more comfortable to use a walker. We both feel she is well enough to continue our trip to Florida, so on Monday we left the campground near Chattanooga and headed south.

Unfortunately, this leg of our journey led no farther than Atlanta, where we had some unfinished business with an RV repair company. This week they are replacing our damaged awning and mechanism and doing some other repairs. We hope they will be finished by Friday, as we are due to arrive at a campground at Wauchula in southwest Florida on Monday. Meanwhile, we are staying with a lifelong friend in Fayetteville, just south of Atlanta.

As you know if you've been following this blog, we had hoped to spend at least three months in Florida this year. If that had worked out according to plan, I would probably have undertaken to photograph and write a Backroads and Byways of Florida book. Now, with so much time lost, I'm thinking I most likely will not attempt it. It would tie up a lot of time, and at age 84 one has to be careful what one commits to. But it would be a lot of fun!

Not, however, so much fun for Louise, who does not enjoy driving around with me when I'm working on a project. I leave early, work until there's not enough light for photography, and don't take much in the way of breaks. I usually eat cheap and on the run. Fun for me, but not so much for Louise.

But we'll see. We agree that we want to get around and see some places and things while we're in Florida, and I will probably grab a few pix as we go. Maybe enough for a start on a book?

Maybe. We'll see.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

The Fire-Breathing Dragon

The Last Gasp of the Fire-Breathing Dragon

Continued from Friday's post.

I hooked a log chain to the tree that tried to kill me, then dragged it to the burning pile, where I cut it into sections and rolled it onto the fire piece by piece.

At the last, it revealed its true nature: the tree that tried to kill me was actually a disguised Fire-Breathing Dragon!

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

The Tree that Tried to Kill Me

Me in My Guise as a Farmer, with the Tree that Tried to Kill Me

Just below the dam that held my pond was a giant, old oak, at least four feet in diameter at the base. Sometime around 2010 a strong wind blew the top off the tree and left a broken stump about 20 feet high.

Over a period of time, I hooked a log chain to the great, broken-off limbs, pulled them out with my tractor, and cut them up for firewood. The smaller limbs went on the burning pile where we burned dead limbs that had fallen from our trees, and also dead trees that were no good for firewood; mostly pines killed by pine borers.

In April, 2020 as we were preparing to sell the property I decided it was time to get rid of the ugly, old stump. It sat beside a small ravine just below the ponds overflow drain. I cut all around its base with my chainsaw -- the stump was hollow, by the way -- and very unwisely, made my final cut on the low side of the stump.

(I say unwisely because I knew better. I 've been working in the woods all my life, beginning when I was nine years old, when my Dad paid me a nickel apiece to cut down small trees for fence posts.)

As I made the cut the stump began to slide on its base, rotating as it fell across the ravine, hitting me and knocking me down. I fell across a root and cracked a few ribs, but the tree bridged the ravine and did not actually fall on me. If it had, I would not be writing this. Don't blame the tree. It tried!

Sawing Up a Big Limb of the Tree for Firewood

Burning Brush at Deer Run Farm

 

Photographs and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

Photographic Composition 101 Part VI: A Final Word (for now) about Framing

The Frank Inman House, Martin County, Indiana

It was my good fortune to grow up in the 1940s and '50s in a remote, sparsely populated section of southern Indiana. I was blessed to have the experience of a 19th century upbringing in the 20th century. Many of our neighbors still worked their land with horse-drawn implements, as did I, growing enough hay each year for our cattle. I was 13 when we first got electricity, and 15 when we got a telephone.

Our nearest neighbors were the Inmans, who lived more than a half-mile away. They were even poorer than we were, living in a small, log house with clapboard siding.  

In 1955 I went off to college in the South and never went back to Indiana to live.

On a visit home in 1972, I spent a day rambling gravel backroads, photographing the abandoned houses of many of the people I had grown up with. Some of the houses were falling down or nearly gone.

Meanwhile, our neighbor Frank Inman had been killed in a hunting accident and his wife and children had gone to live with relatives in Illinois. I photographed their house through the wheel of a broken tricycle I found in the yard because I felt it gave greater poignancy to the feeling of abandonment.

Later, I said to Louise "I don't know why I feel drawn to photographing old structures. I'll never make a dime doing it." (See my books Rock City Barns: A Passing Era and Backroads and Byways of Georgia to see how that played out!)

Photograph and text copyright 1972-2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Photographic Composition 101 Part V: Simplify

Drummers at the Cultural Village, Lusaka, Zambia

Perhaps even more important than the other compositional principles we've looked at so far is simplicity. The comment that I hear perhaps more than any other about my pictures is that they are "clean." This means that they have no visual clutter in them.

For our photographs to have the sense of presence we want them to have, we must learn to simplify them. That means to make sure they have every element we want in the frame, and nothing that doesn't contribute to the overall effect. You are responsible for every square millimeter of that frame.

If you're not seeing what you want to see when you look through the viewfinder, move to a different position. Look from a higher or lower angle. Change lenses or zoom for a different focal length until you see the composition that sets forth the subject in the strongest way.

The picture of the Zambian drummers portrays the scene in the strongest way I could find. Even the fourth pair of hands in the lower right adds to the composition.

After Evening Chapel at the Mission Hospital, Abak, Ibom, Nigeria

Simplifying your pictures doesn't mean there can't be complexity. This photograph, made after evening chapel services at the mission hospital in Abak, Ibom Province, Nigeria, is one of the most complex photos I've ever made. Yet, it's also simple, because everything that needs to be in the frame is there and nothing that doesn't contribute to the whole.

Tribesman of Mayalan, Northern Guatemala

Likewise, this photograph of a tribesman in the remote mountain village of Mayalan in northern Guatemala tells us a great deal about him. We see his environment, the type of house he lives in, the distinctive tribal collar of his shirt. We also see something of his attitude in the way he stands and looks at the camera with a serious, somewhat challenging stare. Or maybe he's just thinking "What is that crazy gringo up to now?"

Everything in the frame tells us something about him and his life, and nothing detracts. That's what I mean by simplifying.

All photographs made with Olympus OM cameras, various lenses, and Fujichrome slide film.

Photographs and text copyright 1989-2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Photographic Composition 101 Part IV: Leading Lines

 Lobster Shack, Cape Neddick, Maine

Just to be clear, leading lines in photography are not the same thing as the lines you once used to start a conversation with an attractive woman. In photography, as in painting, a leading line is something in the fore and usually middle ground of the picture that leads the eye to the main subject -- as in the photo of the lobster shack at Cape Neddick, Maine. Notice how the lines of the beached skiff and the pickup truck point to the shack?

This, by the way, is one of the few personal photos for which I used a 4x5 film camera. I used 4x5 a great deal in the studio, because, for much of my career it was the basic tool for commercial photography. However, a 4x5 camera is heavy and cumbersome, and the process of shooting with one is too slow for my impatient self! But I had taken it with me on this trip to Maine in 1984 and thought I might as well get some use from it. Calumet 4x5 view camera,210mm f5.6 Rodenstock lens,Kodak Ektachrome film.

Rainbow Springs Tobacco Barn, Cook County, Georgia

This tobacco barn with a Rainbow Springs sign is one of the best examples of leading lines in my photo files. In June, 1995 I was traveling through south Georgia on a quest for Rock City barns when I found it on US 41 just south of Sparks in Cook County. Since, in addition to Rock City barns I always photographed anything else of interest I found along the way, I naturally made a picture.

I could have walked up to the barn and filled the frame with it, but that photo would not have been nearly as interesting as one with the rows of plants, probably soybeans, leading up to it. Canon EOS A2, probably the EF 28-105 f3.5-4.5 lens, Fujichrome 100 slide film.

 Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Cape Pemiquid, Maine

The line of the white picket fence draws the eye perfectly to the Pemaquid Point lighthouse at Cape Pemaquid, Maine. Leica M3, 50mm f2 Summicron lens, Kodachrome 64 slide film.

I want to emphasize that the things I've been writing about in the last few posts are compositional techniques, not rules. Using them can improve many photographs, but in some situations it may not be possibly to apply them, and some subjects do not need them. But before making a photo, I usually check to see if there is some way to put it in a frame, create a near-far relationship, or use leading lines. If not, I make the picture anyway. It may turn out just fine.

Photographs and text copyright 1984-2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Photographic Composition 101 Part III: Near-Far Relationships

Clarence  Spindler, Gibson County, Indiana

I'm posting this series on photographic composition to help us remember to compose our pictures in ways that will give them the three-dimensional quality which helps communicate our thoughts and feelings most effectively. Most of us know this stuff, but I, at least, need an occasional reminder to use what I know.

In the previous two posts we talked about framing, which is an excellent way to create a three-dimensional effect in a photograph. However, there are many situations where an appropriate frame simply isn't available.

One alternate way to create that feeling of depth in a picture is by establishing a near/far relationship. In the photo above, Clarence Spindler and the kitten would have made a nice photo all by themselves. However, by setting Mr. Spindler and kitten in the foreground and his Rock City barn in the background, we create a visual relationship in which each element adds interest to the other. Canon EOS A2, 24mm f2.8 Zuiko lens. From my award-winning book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era.

Barn and Pond, Cherokee Valley Road, Catoosa County, Georgia

In this picture, the reeds occupy the foreground, the barn's reflection is in the middle distance, and finally, the barn, with its vivid, red color. (Lost my notes and don't remember which camera I used for this photograph.) This photo and the one below are from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

Lookout Mountain from McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia

The bale of hay in the foreground and the bales scattered in the middle ground all direct the viewer's eye to Lookout Mountain, magnificent in its fall clothing. Pentax 6x7, 105mm f2.5 Takumar lens. All photographs with Fujichrome 100 film.

Photographs and text copyright 1996-2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

 

 

Photographic Composition 101 Part II: More about Framing

Sunrise on Tybee Island

Sometimes you can put the subject quite literally in a frame, as in this photograph of a sunrise on the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia, as seen through an old anchor just above the beach. Unfortunately, I don't remember what camera I used to make this picture, but it was probably an Olympus OM2n. The film was almost certainly Fujichrome 100, since that has been my film of choice since around 1986.

The Warm Springs Hotel, Warm Springs, Georgia

The frieze and column of a shop across the street form a frame for the old Warm Springs Hotel Bread and Breakfast, taken on my return trip to west Georgia in 2010 to complete my tour around the state. This photograph was made with one of my very favorite cameras -- a classic Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex,  using Fujicrome 100 film in 2-14 X 2-1/4 size. I should use this camera more often! The two photos above are from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

City Hall, Barnesville, Georgia

Surely the funkiest city hall in the entire United States!

 

Framing adds depth to a picture by drawing the eye to the main subject. Sometimes however, there are subjects that are so distinctive they can stand on their own. The unique City Hall in Barnesville, Georgia is what is, as it is, and needs nothing but a straight-on presentation. This photograph could not be improved by anything I could do to enhance it, whether by choosing a different angle or looking for something in the foreground to frame it. I love the way the street lamp reflects the curve of the arched windows. I used a Canon EOS 6D digital camera for this photo, with an EF 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens.

 Photographs and text copyright 1992-2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone