Photocrastination

 

What one factor ruins more good photographs than any other? More than wrong exposure. More than missed focus. More than camera movement. What is it? It's procrastination. A close second is failure to carry your camera.

There are many reasons why we might pass up a good photo opportunity, but one of the most common ones is hurry. We have to get somewhere and we don't think we have time to stop to make a photograph. Another reason is inconvenience. Or maybe I should call it laziness. We see the photo, but we also see it won't be as good if taken from where we are. We'll have to move a bit, maybe walk a little distance to get in best position for the shot.

Probably the number one hindrance to good people photography is fear. For that matter, fear of being open and vulnerable is the greatest hindrance in most human relationships. Fear often shows itself as 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 may be more receptive. You don't have the right camera. Or the right lens. 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! 

High on the western side of Pigeon Mountain is a small enclosed valley -- known in the southern Appalachians as a "pocket." Someone told us about it not long after we came to McLemore Cove, and of course, we wanted to see it for ourselves. Driving back along the gravel road that led to the Pocket, we passed a cornfield where an old man and his wife were picking corn. It was Fred "Coon" Hise, then in his 80s, and his wife Myrtle. We stopped and they came over to talk with us, their arms full of corn and their faces full of simple goodness. The scene was overwhelmingly reminiscent of a famous 1930s FSA photograph of an Iowa farmer and his wife holding the products of their farm. I had my camera; I could have taken the picture; but somehow, I didn't. I've missed many shots in my career as a photographer, and some I regret more than others. But this was the one I regret more than any other.

As the little signs that people used to hang on their office walls admonished, DO IT NOW!

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 Missing Chapter

     Built in 1880 by James Parrish, the covered bridge at George L. Smith

State Park near Twin City was also a fully-functioning grist mill.

 

Millstones at the Parrish Mill

 

In the fall of 2020 I was asked by my editor at Countryman Press if I would like to do a second edition of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia. In addition, he asked me to do another chapter, or tour.

I did a little work on the book that fall, but was very busy getting our house and farm ready to sell, so I didn't begin serious work on it until the spring of 2021. The project involved driving each of the 15 tours, checking for anything that might have changed since I mapped out the first edition in 2016. I did most of the travel in June and July; driving nearly 8,000 miles, including extensive travel for the 16th tour. In fact, it was one of the longest and most expensive to produce.

Over the summer, my editor left and a new one took charge.

The very lovely 1854 Scarboro Baptist Church

 

 With the second edition almost ready to go to the publisher, I received an email from the editor a few days ago telling me that because of the cost of paper, they needed to keep the second edition about the same size as the first. Consequently, I should only turn in 15 chapters, my choice.

I decided to keep the original 15 chapters, so since the 16th will never see the light of day I decided to share some of the pictures with you.

The 1894 Bulloch County Courthouse, Statesboro

 

 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

Documenting Your World

Raffling off a rifle at the Cedar Grove

Community Club in McLemore Cove.

If you were to view Lookout Mountain in northwest Georgia from above, you would see that it looks like an alligator with open jaws lying on its side. With the tip of its nose in Tennessee, its body sprawls southwest for 80 miles across the northwest corner of Georgia and into Alabama, The lower jaw of the alligator is Pigeon Mountain, and between its jaws lies a deep valley called McLemore Cove.

The inhabitants of the Cove are a cross section of America's real people. The true salt of the earth. They are farmers. some retirees, factory workers, and people who just enjoy living in the Cove.

And me. The Cove was my world for 32 years.

I wish I had started a serious photo-documentation of the Cove and its people from the beginning. It would have made a great book. But at the time I didn't think of it. I just made photos hit or miss as the spirit moved me, and in 32 years I did manage to get some decent photos, but the coverage was nothing like it could have been. Nonetheless, here are a few photos that may give you a flavor of the people and the place.

Marvin cooking for the wild game dinner at the community club. 

Although the Cedar Grove Community Club met every month, the highlight of the year was the wild game dinner each February, with hundreds attending and club members pitching in to help..

Serving it up at the wild game dinner.

 

One of our neighbors was George D. Queener, the biggest cattleman in the Cove, with 850 acres and about 350 purebred cattle.

George D. was still riding his horse in his 80s.

 

Killed by pine borers, a tree falls across Sourwood Lane.

 

Our little herd. Chickamauga Creek in the background.

 

Even a small herd of cattle is a lot of work. Eventually, we realized we were no longer able to keep up with things as well as we wanted to. We enjoy our life and travels in our RV, but we will always remember our life in McLemore Cove.

 Winter in the Cove. Chickamauga Creek and Pigeon Mountain.

 

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

 

Documenting the Life of Your Family

My son Donny playing in spray, 1974

Don's son Devlin playing in spray, 2004

Not everyone loves photography, but 'most everyone loves pictures.

I have two daughters-in-law, both of them lovely women and each ideally suited to the son to whom she is married. Neither considers herself a photographer, yet each is constantly making photographs. Bonnie has an oldie-but-goodie Canon 20D I sent her way some years ago, and every year we receive a calendar filled with excellent family photos. From Kim, we receive a steady stream of cell phone photos of our grandkids, her household decor, plants in her garden and anything else she can think of. She doesn't think of herself as a photographer, but she is, and a prolific one at that. Both the girls are creating an ongoing documentation of their families, and provided they download their photos to their computers and back them up, and most especially, make prints, they will have photographic records of their families that will bring joy for generations to come.

                                       Lunch at the grandparents' pool, 1972

Since I began dabbling in photography in 1968 I've made it a habit to keep a camera close at hand at all times. When I notice something of interest I casually snap off a few frames. Someday soon I plan to put a bunch of those photos together in a book that tells the story of the life of my family, have it printed by one of the online printing companies, and give a copy to each of my kids and grandkids. A worthy project for any parent.

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 

 

Documentary Photography

A premature infant in the Neo-Natal ICU

at Floyd County Hospital, Rome, Georgia

 In addition to my primary work as a commercial photographer making photographs for businesses to use in their advertising and corporate communications, it has been my privilege to do documentary photography in many places around the United States. Documentary photography assignments have also taken me to nearly 30 foreign countries on five continents.

A church service in Abak, Ibom, Nigeria

 

Documentary photography has been defined as a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events. The term usually refers to photography which captures real moments, conveying a message about life and the world. It is often confused with photojournalism, which is one form of documentary photography. This is the work which has been by far the most enjoyable and meaningful to me.

A Sunday School class at First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga

 

Over the 50-plus years of my career I've done documentary projects for health care, missions, education, and non-profit organizations.

For more than 20 years it was  my special privilege to do an annual photo-documentation of the life of First Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga. Each year's documentation had a theme, exploring some phase of the church's ministry, and was published in the form of a brochure or booklet.

Fishermen launch their boat from the beach. Madras, India

 

One of the best things about documentary photography is that you don't have to be a professional to do it. In fact, one of the most important photo-documentations anyone can do is to create a photo record of one's life. One's family. The organizations one is involved with. One's community. We'll talk more about this next time.

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 

A Man for All Seasons

Reverend/Senator/General Wayne Burkes, Jackson, MS 

A bi-vo pastor? What's that?

Big deal, I thought when I first heard the term. It's just a man who holds a regular job and also pastors a church. I was very familiar with the concept, although I had not heard the term, because my father did it all his life. But bi-vocational is the term Southern Baptists use for such people, and that's okay with me, because it resulted in a nice assignment.

In 1988, the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board (since reorganized under another name), decided to run an article in their magazine, Missiions USA, featuring a representative group of men selected from the many bi-vocational pastors in the denomination.

Long-time close friend and distinguished graphic designer Michael Largent, was design editor at Missions USA at the time, and he gave me an assignment to photograph several of the men.

Each of these pastors was an impressive person with an interesting story. Some worked a second job because their congregations were too small or poor to support them. Others because they enjoyed the challenge of burning the candle at both ends. But the most impressive man was not a bi-vocational pastor; he was TRI-vocational. And what vocations! Each of them would have been as much as most men would want to handle, but Wayne Burkes was not only the pastor of one of Jackson, Mississippi's largest Baptist churches; he was also a Mississippi state senator and a general in the Mississippi Air National Guard, where he flew massive C-130 cargo planes.

I photographed Rev./Senator/General Burkes in the cockpit of his C-130, but the shot that I (and Michael) preferred was made in the rotunda of the state capital at Jackson. Posing him by the balustrade on the second level of the building, I placed one light with an umbrella reflector at a 45-degree angle to his right front and a second, similar but weaker light to his left rear. Then, going down one level, I directed one more light upward to fill some of the shadows. With a slight wide-angle lens, probably a 35mm on my Olympus OM camera, I shot upward to include as much of the dome of the rotunda as possible. The film was Fujichrome 100.

"That's a good one," said Michael, as he reviewed my coverage. "Put it in your portfolio." And so I did.

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 

Noticing Incongruity

Boynton Beauty Salon

 If you've been reading my blog for very long, you may have noticed that I keep coming back to the subject of noticing things. If you want to make good photographs you have to keep your eyes open. As the great Elliott Erwitt, one of the most significant photographers of the last half of the 20th century, said, "The most important ability in photography is the ability to notice things." I wrote more extensively about this here and here.

Best Iron Works in Town

Orange Walk Town, Belize

 

One of the things I'm always looking for is incongruity, which is defined as placing things together that visually don't belong together, that are incompatible with each other. One of my all-time favorite examples of incongruity was a sign on a store in Chattanooga that sold prosthetics. It read "STUBBS: Limbs and Braces."

Unfortunately, although I passed the store many times, I never photographed the sign. I always told myself that I would get it next time, but I never did. Which reminds me of something that I want to write about soon: photocrastination.

Meantime, keep your eyes open for visual incongruities -- things that have funny or interesting ways of not fitting together.

 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 

 

Breakfast at Susie's

Breakfast at Susie's

The name of Susie’s Café on the square in beautiful downtown LaFayette, Georgia was officially Susie’s Sunset Café. But I’ve always thought it should have been named Susie’s Sunrise Café, because in the early morning the rising sun streamed in through the plate-glass front 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 middle where lawyers, businessmen, farmers, factory workers, and gas station attendants ate their breakfasts together and chewed the fat (no reflection on the bacon) in amiable equality. 

Susie's is gone now, but there are still places like it in small towns around the country. In fact, Louise and I ate breakfast in a very similar place in Wyoming when we pulled our camper west in 2018.  

Adapted from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

This photograph was made with a small Olympus SPn 35mm rangefinder camera with a 40mm lens and Fujicolor 400 color negative film. I was casually watching the men from a booth across from their table, and when I  saw a composition I liked I quietly raised the camera and shot two or three frames.

 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 

At Home in Florida

Our Trailer and Truck (and Louise) at Home in Florida

It was a long time comin', but we are finally in Florida. We're at the Florida SKP Resort near Wauchula, and it is unlike any place we've ever been. Spacious sites, concrete pads, grassy yards -- we've never seen, or even imagined a campground like this. It's owned by the Escapees Club, and because we are members the rate is half what we would usually pay.

Wauchula, by the way, is about 50 miles east of Sarasota-Bradenton, and about 90 miles southwest of Orlando. All of which means that it's in the middle of nowhere.

The weather is fabulous--80s in the daytime, and cool at night. Louise, who grew up in Miami, says she had never realized how much she missed south Florida.

We are booked here for the rest of March, and may stay for a week or two in April. Or, we may move to northeast Florida near DeLand to see some friends. In May we plan to begin working our way north and west, to South Dakota and Montana, see Yellowstone again, and visit our granddaughter and her family in Idaho and two grandsons, one with a family, in Utah.

That's the plan, but as I said before, man plans, God laughs. (God has been laughing at us quite a bit lately, but here's hoping!)

 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