The Backroads Traveler: Washington, Georgia

Built in 1904 in an architectural style known as Richardsonian Romanesque, the
  Wilkes County Courthouse is surely the funkiest in Georgia.

Washington, a small city in northeast Georgia, had a population of only 3,754 people in the 2020 census. Yet the town has an unusually distinguished history. It also has what is probably the funkiest courthouse in the state.

Washington was first settled in 1774 with the name Heard's Fort, and was for a brief time during the Revolutionary War the capital of Georgia. Of greater note, however, is the fact that the final cabinet meeting of Jefferson Davis' Confederate government took place here, and it was here in Washington on May 5, 1865  that the Confederacy was officially dissolved. 

Built in 1814, the Robert Toombs House is an Historical Site . 

Although Madison is better known for its antebellum homes, Washington and Wilkes County actually have the most such houses in Georgia -- more than a hundred.

The  1793 Liberty Inn is believed to be the oldest original house in Washington.

 

The Fitzpatrick Hotel is located on the courthouse square.

Although the Fitzpatrick Hotel was built in 1898, it fell on hard times and was closed for more than 50 years. It has now been fully restored and features 17 luxurious rooms furnished in Victorian period furniture.

Stop by the Visitors' Center at 22B West Square near the courthouse and pick up a map to guide you on a fascinating walking or driving tour. You could easily spend a lot of time in Washington. And while you're here, experience something unique: visit the old-fashioned soda fountain and lunch counter at the Fievet Pharmacy at 115 East Robert Toombs Avenue. They're open 8 a.m.–4:40 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m.–2 p.m. on Saturday, serving breakfast, burgers, sandwiches, salads, milkshakes, and sodas.

(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

Photos: The courthouse, Robert Toombs House, and the Fitzpatrick Hotel were all photographed with a Canon EOS 6D camera and the Canon EF 28-105mm lens. For the Liberty Inn photo I used an Olympus E-M5 with the Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm G-Vario lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    travel   Washington, Georgia     Wilkes County     Fitzpatrick Hotel     Robert Toombs Historic Site    Canon EOS 6D     Canon EF 28-105 lens     Olympus E-M5     Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm G-Vario lens

Rocky Top to Miami: U.S. Heritage Highway 441

Rocky Top. The northern end of U.S. Highway 441. Not very exciting, huh?

The strung-out little northeastern Tennessee village of Rocky Top is not the beginning of U.S. 441, but the end. The highway actually began in Florida as a spur off U.S. 41 to connect Ocala and Orlando,  and was gradually extended north and south to its present length of 937 miles. Its southern terminus is in downtown Miami.

But we'll start at Rocky Top, because that's closest to where I am. From here, 441 heads south, crosses over Norris Dam, and passes through downtown Knoxville before turning east and then south through the tourist havens of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, climbing to more than 5,000 feet at Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as it crosses over into North Carolina. 

A "lost" Rock City barn on U.S. 441 near Dillsboro, North Carolina.

Considered one of the most scenic highways in the United States, 441 continues south into northeast Georgia, passing over 1000-feet deep Tallulah Gorge on its way.

Tallulah Gorge is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia.

Avoiding Atlanta and Macon, U.S. 441 connects east central Georgia cities such as Athens, Madison, Milledgeville, Dublin, and Douglas before crossing into Florida, first to Lake City, then on to Gainesville.

 Andalusia Farm near Milledgeville, home of writer Flannery O'Conner.

From Ocala through Orlando, U.S. Highway 441 achieves its greatest prominence as the historic Orange Blossom Trail, its original route.

South of Kissimmee, 441 skirts the eastern side of Lake Okeechobee, then heads for Lake Worth on the Atlantic coast. From there, it follows the coastline south to its end (or maybe its beginning) in Miami. I've driven many sections of U.S. Highway 441 and I'd like to drive it from end to end someday. But that probably won't happen. I will most likely run out of life before I run out of places I want to go. 

Photos: The U.S. 441 sign at Rocky Top was photographed with a Fuji X-H1 camera and the Fujicron 16-80mm f4 lens. An Olympus E-PL1 with the 14-42 mm Zuiko lens was used for the Rock City barn photo. For the picture of Tallulah Gorge, I used an Olympus OMD E-M5 with a Panasonic 14-140mm Vario-G lens. Andalusia Farm was photographed with a Fuji X-H1 and a Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    travel   U.S. Highway 441     Great Smoky Mountains National Park     Rock City barns     Tallulah Gorge   Andalusia Farm    Fuji X-H1 camera      Fujicron XF16-80mm lens     Fujicron XC16-50mm lens     Olympus E-PL1    14-42 mm Zuiko lens     Olympus OMD E-M5     Panasonic 14-140mm Vario-G lens

Louise Sees a Bear!

 This young bear chose the fork of a massive limb as a place to take a nap. As it happened, that spot was about 25 feet directly above the loop road that goes around Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

(Scroll down for more photos. Click on photos to enlarge.)  

(Blog Note: Just for fun, I'm reposting one of my favorite blogs from June, 2022.)

Louise has had a lifelong desire to see a bear in the wild up close and personal. Well, maybe not that close and that personal, but still. . .

Our 50th anniversary trip to Alaska was great, but with one flaw: we did not see a bear. Well, actually, we did see a couple of bears on the bus trip to Denali, but so far away that to the naked eye they were mere specks. You can read about it here.

So great was her disappointment that when we got home from Alaska we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and drove the Loop Road in Cades Cove several times. Did we see a bear? No.

So this past Monday we decided to make a day trip to Cades Cove. Just for fun. We eventually found ourselves at the end of a long line of very slow-moving traffic on the Loop Road. When we finally neared the head of the line we saw people getting out of their cars with cameras and cell phones and looking up into a tree that spread over the road. And in the fork of an enormous limb about 25 feet above us, a young bear, trying to take a nap and wondering what all the commotion was about.

A few minutes later as we finally drove away we saw another young bear running through a field about a hundred yards distant. Louise was happy. She had seen not one, but two bears. Close enough, but not too close.

My telephoto lens was broken, so I made these photos with the 16-50mm lens on my Fuji X-T20 and cropped them severely. That they still look quite good is a testimonial to the Fuji 24-megapixel sensor.

                      Waking up with a yawn. . .                        

     . . .he looks down in amazement. "What the heck. . .?     

  "Maybe I should just go down and bite them!"

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    travel    Cades Cove     Great Smoky Mountains National Park     bears     Fuji X-T20 camera     Fujicron XC16-50mm lens

The Backroads Traveler: Warm Springs, Georgia

The Hotel Warm Springs, Warm Springs, Georgia.

One of the smallest, and to me, most interesting of Georgia's small towns is Warm Springs. I think it's one of the state's best-kept secrets.

The commercial district is a single block long, anchored at one end by the Hotel Warm Springs Bed and Breakfast, and at the other end, across the street, the Bulloch House Restaurant. Both sides of the street are lined with small shops selling a wide variety of goods.

The big draw at Warm Springs, however, is located about a half-mile out of town. It's Franklin D. Roosevelt's Little White House.

Roosevelt first came to Warm Springs in 1924, hoping that the 88-degree spring waters would cure the polio that had struck him in 1921. The waters helped but were not a cure. Nevertheless, he kept coming back, making 41 trips between 1924 and his death.

In 1932, while governor of New York, he had a six-room house built at Warm Springs, the only house he ever owned. He died of a stroke at the Little White House in 1945, with World War II victory in sight. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt statue, Dowdell Knob, Pine Mountain.

Visitors can tour his carefully preserved home, open from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. The admission charge is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $7 for ages 6–17, and $2 for ages five and under.

When Roosevelt visited Warm Springs, the Hotel Warm Springs was home to his staff, the press, and international dignitaries. As a photographer, I had the interesting privilege of spending two nights in a room whose bathtub was used by newspaper photographers to process their film.

Built in 1907, the hotel has, since 1988, been owned, operated, and extensively and authentically restored by vibrantly active septuagenarian Gerrie Thompson. It features rooms furnished with antiques and furniture made in Eleanor Roosevelt's family's furniture factory. A "Southern Breakfast Feast" and evening refreshments are part of the package, and an ice cream parlor and fudge shop are on the premises.

The original Bulloch House was built in 1893 by Benjamin F. Bulloch, cofounder of Warm Springs. It was converted into a restaurant in 1990, and was purchased by Peter and Sandy Lampert in 2011, who continue the Bulloch House's tradition of fine Southern cuisine. The house burned to the ground in 2015, but the Lamperts moved the business to the storefront at 70 Broad Street and carried right on, featuring an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch on Tuesdays through Sundays and dinner on Fridays and Saturdays.

Warm Springs is just a short distance from Pine Mountain and Callaway Gardens. It's well worth a trip or a side trip. 

(The photograph of Hotel Warm Springs was made with a Minolta twin-lens reflex camera and Fujichrome 120 film.)

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     film cameras    Minolta twin-lens reflex camera     TLR cameras     Fujichrome 120 film     travel     Georgia     Warm Springs     Franklin D. Roosevelt     Roosevelt's Little White House

The First Tree that Tried to Kill Me

The big limb that nearly got me.

As I was scanning some old medium format transparencies a few days ago, I found one I had forgotten about. Here's the story.

In November, 1985 we bought 30 acres of land in northwest Georgia's McLemore Cove. It was two years before we could actually move to the property, but in the meantime we moved our camper to the farm and spent many weekends there. About a hundred feet in front of the old house on the property was a very large old maple, probably three feet in diameter.

Memorial Day weekend in 1986, our son Don invited some friends from his high school ROTC unit to come out and camp. When it got dark, we built a campfire near the old maple and sat around it roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. Suddenly, a very strong wind came from the west and began blowing embers toward the old house. As we jumped up to put out the fire, there was a loud cracking sound and a massive limb (actually half the trunk) broke off and fell toward us. Everyone scattered. I guess I was too slow, or maybe I ran the wrong direction, because the limb fell all around me and knocked me down. I had a couple of broken ribs, but, looking at the limb as it lay on the ground, it is an absolute miracle I wasn't killed. It was approximately two feet in diameter at its base.

That was the first tree that tried to kill me. The second was in April, 2020. You can read about it here.

But I got my revenge!

A few months later the rest of the tree blew over, leaving a massive hole in the ground. We had a wood-burning stove in the den at our house near Chattanooga, so I cut that sucker up with a chainsaw, split it, and hauled it home in my little Ford pickup. It kept us warm for the better part of a year.

Photos: The picture at the top is an extreme crop from a 2-1/4 x 2-3/4 Kodak Ektachrome transparency. The bottom photo is a 2-1/4 x 2-3/4 Kodachrome in the rare 120 size, which was only made for a short time. Both pictures were made with a Pentax 6x7 camera with the Takumar 105mm f2.4 lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     film cameras     Kodachrome    Kodak Ektachrome     Pentax 6x7     105mm Takumar lens

Is Digital Photography Better?

 

 Breakfast at Susie's, for many years the premier morning hangout in LaFayette, Georgia.

Depends on what you mean by "better." If quicker and easier add up to better in your mind, then digital photography is better. But photography is not about speed and ease -- it's about pictures. So are the pictures any better? I don't think so.

The varied but compatible crowd that frequented Susie's Sunset (I always thought it should have been Sunrise) Cafe in LaFayette, Georgia was photographed with a simple, quiet, Olympus SPn rangefinder camera with a fixed, 42mm lens. Would the picture have been better if I had fired off a dozen exposures with the latest digital camera? What makes the photo work is the composition of the group, and especially, the timing. This is what photographers call "the decisive moment," when everything comes together.

The late, great Robert Riger was one of America's premier sports photographers from the late 1950s through the mid-90s. He filled many books with his work, some of which are still available new on amazon.com and other sites. He did not have a camera such as the Sony A9, which, when you press the shutter release, fires off a string of shots from which the photographer can select the best when he edits the files. Yet, Riger turned out one great shot after another, working with slow film, even Kodachrome, which had an ASA (now called ISO) of 25, slow lenses by today's standards, and cameras with no autofocus. How did he do it? Composition and timing. Tools that are available to every photographer willing to put in the time and practice to learn them.

I'm not suggesting you go back to film. But I am saying that a digital camera will not make your photography better. That's something only you can do.

(Photo made with an Olympus 35mm SPn camera, Fuji color negative film.) 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     film cameras     Kodachrome     Robert Riger

35.000 Miles

The valiant 1987 Chevrolet Blazer at barn RCB-AL-11. U.S. Highway. 11, DeKalb County, Alabama.

I began the Rock City Barns book project at Sweetwater, Tennessee on October 24, 1994 and completed it at Waynesville, Ohio on April 6, 1996, just in time to meet the publication deadline. In between I visited 15 states and drove 35,000 miles, most of them in this 1987 Chevrolet Blazer. 

Using Rock City's old records of barn locations, I visited more than 500 sites and found barns in various states of repair on a little more than half of them. The only state where I did not find a barn was Michigan, and I later learned that I had been within just a few miles of one near Hillsdale (home of the prominent college). 

The Blazer served me well, except for a trip to northern Indiana and Illinois in the fall of '95, when the transmission came to a grinding (literally) halt. I called my brother Steve in southern Indiana, who came with his diesel truck and flatbed trailer, loaded my Blazer, and delivered me back to northwest Georgia and a transmission shop. Meanwhile, I rented a car and went back to Illinois.

The transmission never seemed quite right to me after that, so I eventually sold the car to my garageman, who drove it for years. So I guess the transmission wasn't all that bad.

These are the barn painters' file cards that I used to find barn locations.

(I made the picture at the top to go with a magazine article I wrote about the Rock City Barns book project. Canon EOS A2 film camera on a tripod, triggered by a remote release.)

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    travel     Rock City barns     film photography     film cameras    Canon EOS A2     Canon EF Fujichrome 100 film     Rock City Barns book    1987 Chevrolet Blazer

How Green Was My Valley

 A disguised Rock City barn north of Manchester, Coffee County, Tennessee.

When I first saw this barn on May 25, 1995, the words that immediately came to my mind were "How Green Was My Valley," the title of a book published in 1939 and made into a movie in 1941. Just about everything was green. The hillside, the trees, even the roll  of hay. Everything except the cattle and the Ruby Falls sign. Even the barn boards had a bit of greenish mold.

Strange as it may seem, not all Rock City's barns were faithful to their painter.  This barn, nine miles north of Manchester, Tennessee is one of two turncoats I found which had transferred their allegiance to Ruby Falls, another Lookout Mountain tourist attraction. 

But the change was not permanent. Returning from a trip north around 2005, I got off Interstate 24 at the north end of Manchester and went north to see how the barn had fared. I found that the Ruby Falls sign had worn completely away and the original Rock City sign was quite visible. I took pictures, but to my shame, I can't find them. 

In November, 2019, my friend the distinguished graphic artist, photographer, and teacher Michael Largent and I went out to make some photographs for my "Lost Barns" project. On a whim, we took a little detour to check out this barn. Approaching it from the south, I saw something I had not seen before: on its southern side was a sign for Meramec Caverns, an attraction near Stanton, Missouri which has many signs on barns in the Southeast and Midwest.

A Meramec Caverns sign hiding on the south side of the barn.

The little valley is no longer green, and the old barn is sagging. Time will be the ultimate master of us all. But I like to do what I can to preserve the memory of these relics of mid-20th century roadside culture.

(The top photo was made with a Canon EOS A2 film camera with the Canon EF 28-105mm lens and Fujichrome 100 film. The bottom photo was made with a Fuji X-T20 digital camera with the Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     Rock City barns     film photography     film cameras    Canon EOS A2     Canon EF 28-105mm lens      Fujichrome 100 film     Fuji X-T20 digital camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens

Rocky and Friends

Rocky the Rock City Elf and some friends.

Going through my files of film photographs to select some larger-than-35mm transparencies to convert into digital files on my new/old Epson Perfection 4990 scanner, I came across a photograph that has almost certainly been published more often than any other I've ever made.

From 1982 until 1994, I was the more-or-less official photographer for Rock City Gardens, creating many photographs for their ads and brochures. This picture of Rocky, the Rock City Elf with some of his young friends was featured on the brochure that is given to everyone who buys a ticket to Rock City, so it has been printed countless thousands of times over many years.

The setup was simple: Rocky stood with his balloons in front of the Rock City entrance and we had the kids run out to meet him while I snapped the peak action with my Hasselblad. We repeated the process six or eight times to make sure we got some good shots. Most were okay, but the one with the little boy jumping off the ground in excitement was exceptional. (The little boy, by the way, is the son of Rock City president Bill Chapin and is now around 40 years old!)

In today's world of "spray and pray" digital photography, making only six or eight shots of a situation like this sounds strange. But that's  the way we did it back then, and it usually worked out just fine.

I had a great working relationship with Rock City, but in 1994 I got busy with the Rock City Barns book project and the day-to-day work for the attraction passed on to other photographers.

(The photo was made with a Hasselblad 500CM camera, the 80mm Zeiss lens, and Kodak Ektachrome film.)

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     scanning     Epson Perfection 4990 Photo scanner     film photography     film cameras     Hasselblad 500CM     Zeiss 80mm lens     Kodak Ektachrome film     Rock City Gardens

More Fun and Games with Scanners

Log shed in snow, Deer Run Farm, McLemore Cove, northwest Georgia c1988.

 

 I bought my first Epson Perfection 4990 flatbed scanner around 20 years ago. It gave me great scans from transparencies and prints. When we sold our home and moved into an RV I took it with me, thinking I would scan some film and prints in the evenings when we were not traveling. Unfortunately, it flew off my desk when I was doing some hard braking and was damaged. Since that model is no longer made, when we were settled in our home in Knoxville I began looking online for a used one in good shape and recently found one. Since then I've been working out some kinks and brushing up on my scanning technique. Both pictures in today's post were scanned from 2-1/4 x 2-3/4-inch transparencies. In fact, my scanner is busily scanning as I write this.

Although both the Epson and my Minolta-DiMage scanners do a great job, they have one inherent flaw: they are slow, slow, slow. The Epson takes about 15 minutes to scan a transparency, and the Di-Mage takes ten to scan a slide. Scanning is an enjoyable way to kill and evening (better than watching TV) but unfortunately, I have a few thousand pictures on film that I would like to scan before I shuffle off this planet. I need a faster method.

Sunset over Lookout Mountain from McLemore Cove c1988.

Fortunately, a faster method exists, but I'm not yet set up to use it. It involves attaching a camera to a copy stand, using a special close-up lens called a macro lens, placing the slide or transparency on a lightbox, and making a digital copy of the picture. I have the camera, of course, and the lightbox, and recently acquired a Fujinon macro lens. But in a fit of absolute foolishness, I let my copy stand go in the estate sale when we sold our house. Now, it could cost me as much as $200 to replace it. Duh!!

So what am I going to do with all those photographs when I get them scanned? Honestly, I don't know. Some of them will appear on this blog of course. But other than that, I just like having a visual history of where I've been and what I've seen. Not that my great-grandkids are likely to care! 

Both pictures were made around 1988 during our early days at the farm, with a Pentax 6x7, the 105mm f2.4 Takumar lens, and Kodak Ektachrome film.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     scanning     Konica-Minolta DiMage 5400 scanner     Epson Perfection 4990 Photo scanner     film photography     film cameras     Pentax 6x7     Takuman 105mm lens     Kodak Ektachrome film     Funinon 60mm macro lens     McLemore Cove

Fun and Games with Scanners

The old Hicks House in snow, winter, 1988.

Scanning is the art/science of converting slides and negatives into digital files so they can be edited in a computer, printed by a digital printer, posted online, etc. At least half the pictures you've seen on this blog were originally shot on film and scanned for posting online. That includes, for instance, all the Rock City barn photos and all my foreign photojournalism except El Salvador.

I was a film photographer for 35 years. I've only been working with digital cameras for 20. When sixty percent of your  photographic history is written on slides and negatives, you can either learn to scan, find someone to do it for you, or kiss that history goodbye.

I have two scanners: one is a Konica-Minolta DiMage 5400, which makes extremely high quality scans from 35mm slides and negatives. In fact, I have two 24x36-inch prints from scans made with the DiMage hanging on the walls of my house.

The other scanner is an Epson Perfection 4990 flatbed, similar to the scanner on your printer, but capable of scans of much higher quality. I use it for scanning transparencies and negatives larger than 35mm, and also for scanning prints. The picture of the old Hicks House at the top of this post was scanned today, with the Epson, from a 2-1/4x2-3/4-inch transparency that I found recently while going through some file folders I had packed away when we moved from the farm.

The old house was on our property when we bought it. Apparently it had been built around 1850. We gave brief consideration to restoring it, but decided it was not really what we wanted and the cost could be nearly as much as building a new house.

The picture was made in 1988, during our first winter at the farm, with a Pentax 6x7, the 105mm f2.4 Takumar lens, and Kodak Ektachrome film.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     scanning     Konica-Minolta DiMage 5400 scanner     Epson Perfection 4990 Photo scanner     film photography     film cameras     Pentax 6x7     Takuman 105mm lens     Kodak Ektachrome film     McLemore Cove

A Rock City Barn in Kentucky

Rock City Barn KY-1, Pembroke, Kentucky.

In 1988, Bill Chapin, president of See Rock City, Inc. and great-nephew of founder Garnet Carter, told me of his long-time dream to create a book about Rock City's barns and asked me to find out what it would cost. He decided not to proceed at that time, but my interest had been kindled. I obtained a list of the barns they were still repainting, and whenever my travels brought me near one I made a photograph of it if possible.

In 1992, our son Don had returned from the war in Iraq and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He and his wife Kim had rented a small house at Pembroke, on U.S. Highway 41, one of the old major north-south routes that were at one time festooned with "See Rock City" signs on barns from northern Indiana to the Florida line. (There were never any Rock City signs in Florida, for some reason, but plenty of Burma-Shave signs.) 

This barn was about a mile south of Don's house. By getting low, I used the compositional technique of leading lines to draw the viewer's eye to the barn. The evening light was great, and I was pleased to have another nice shot to add to my collection.

We also had a great weekend with Don and Kim and their dog Pete.

By 1994 I had collected about 25 barn photos. I made prints from my slides and asked for a meeting with Chapin. That was when he said the magic words: "Let's do it!"

And that's how the book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era began.

(Photo: Olympus OM2n film camera, Olympus Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens, Fujichrome 100 film.)

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     film cameras     travel     See Rock City    Rock City Barns     Pembroke,Kentucky     Olympus OM2n     Olympus lenses     Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens    Fujichrome 100 film