Moving on with Digital Photography

 

My all-time favorite wedding photo. The priest grabbed the flowers and waved them around while the couple kissed. Canon 5D, 70-200 f4L lens.

As I wrote in my previous post, I was a little slow getting on board with digital photography. But when I saw that the six-megapixel Canon 10D could make a 16x20-inch print indistinguishable from one made from a  2-1/4 x 2-3/4-inch medium format film negative, I knew that digital was here to stay.

The 10D, though a ground-breaker for me, was not a fully refined product. The auto-focus was slow, and sometimes not quite accurate. And the files were noisy at higher ISOs, although I did shoot and deliver some prints made at 1600. It wasn't long until I moved up a step to the 20D.

The 20D, although still using an APS-C, or half-frame sensor, was a much better camera. It had an eight megapixel sensor, rather than six, and the auto-focus was much quicker and more accurate. I owned four or five of them, all told. Even after I acquired a full-frame, 12-megapixel 5D in 2006 I used a 20D alongside it for several years. 

I stopped booking weddings in 2008 and only worked as a second-shooter from that point on. I was getting more architectural assignments by that time, and the 5D handled them with ease.

Beth. May, 2003. One of my last film weddings.

 In 2010, after lugging the 5D and several lenses around Israel and Jordan, I became very interested in the new m4/3s cameras that blogger and master commercial photographer Kirk Tuck was touting and bought a tiny Olympus E-PL1. That was soon followed by a pair of Oly E-M5s, very capable 16 megapixel cameras which made the majority of photographs in my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.

In 2014 I upgraded the 5D to a 6D, and in 2018 made the final switch, selling my Canon and Olympus equipment and buying Fuji X-series cameras and lenses. They are great and I am happy. No more switching. 

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     digital photography     film photography     wedding photography   Canon EOS 20D camera      Canon EOS 5D camera      Canon EOS 6D camera     Olympus E-PL1 camera     Olympus E-M5 camera     Fuji X-series cameras     Kirk Tuck

Making the Big Switch

Elizabeth dances with her new husband at her wedding.

 I was a film photographer for 35 years -- 1968 to 2003. My exposure technique was carefully honed. I developed my own color slides and developed and printed my black and white film. And I enjoyed it all. When digital came along I didn't want anything to do with it.

And yet. . . I was doing quite a few weddings in those days, shooting color negative film. Processing the film and making 4x6 or 5x5 proofs in house was not economically feasible, but lab costs ran about 75 cents per shot. And my competitors were switching to digital and pocketing the savings.

After talking with my friend Bill Bangham, editor of Commission magazine, which had won many awards for photographic excellence, even against such competition as National Geographic, I decided to take the plunge. And plunge it was, as I had to sell my extremely capable Fuji GX680 in order to raise the $3,000 to buy a Canon 10D. Then I set about, at age 66, to teach myself Photoshop!

To give myself some learning space, I decided to do a few weddings with both digital and film cameras. The first was the wedding of Elizabeth and Marc in June, 2003. The photograph at the top was made with the 10D at an ISO of 800, which was pushing it a bit, and the lens was wide open at f1.8. The resulting picture is blurred, but I included it in their album because this faulty image captures the spirit of the occasion far better than a perfect, needle-sharp photo could have done.

This was my first use of a digital camera at an actual wedding. However, a few weeks before that, I used the 10D for a bridal portrait.

 Leslie's bridal portrait.

 Leslie's wedding was coming up not long after Elizabeth's, but she requested a pre-wedding bridal portrait session. I normally used a Pentax 67 medium format camera for these assignments, but decided to take the Canon 10D as well and used both cameras for each pose, so this was the 10D's actual first professional outing. I chose a file from the 10D and a negative of a similar shot from the Pentax and had the lab make a 16x20 print of each. Almost no one, including the lab technician himself, could tell which was which. To me and others who saw the prints that was pretty convincing evidence that digital was something to consider seriously.

Now, I hardly ever shoot film any more, but I'm still nostalgic for it.

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     wedding photography   Canon EOS 10D camera      Pentax 6x7 camera      Fuji GX680 camera     bridal portraits     Commission Magazine

The Blogging Life

  This is no bull! U.S. Highway 41, Dooly County, Georgia.

 Blogging is like having a baby, then waking up pregnant again the next morning.

My online friend Jim Grey blogs six days a week at https://blog.jimgrey.net/. He calls his blog Down the Road, and covers a wide variety of interesting subjects, including photography. I don't know how he does it.

Jim recently took a few weeks off to do what I would call "readjusting his perspective about life and blogging". I can understand that, although I blog less frequently than Jim and my mind is not as fertile as his.

Being a last-minute kind of guy, I normally write this blog the evening before it posts. Sometimes I simply can't think of anything to write, and the post doesn't appear until the next day, or even the day after. And sometimes, as I say, life simply does get in the way. Louise and I are no longer young (on the calendar, not at heart or in attitude), and we spend more time than I like to think about on doctors and physical therapy.

The thing that helps me most in blogging is my library of pictures, accumulated over a lifetime of photography. When I can't think of anything to write, I look for a picture I think you'll enjoy. Sometimes I write about the photo; other times I just hang it there for you to look at and write about something else. Like today. 

I hope you like the picture of the statuesque bull giving me the eye. I found him along U.S. Highway 41 in south Georgia's Dooly County when Michael Largent and I made a photo-trip to south Georgia in 2006. I photographed Mr. Bull with my Canon EOS 5D Classic and the Canon EF 24-85mm 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      blogging    Jim Grey      Canon EOS 5D camera      Canon EF 24-85mm lens      south Georgia

Dooly County     U.S. Highway 41

Who Needs More Megapixels?

This is a partial crop. I'll show a full crop further down.

 On June 10th I wrote a post titled "How Many Megapixels Do You Need?" The answer I gave was "not many." And that's true -- most of the time, and for most of us.

However, some photographers, especially those photographing birds or wildlife, may find that even their 800 or 1000mm lenses cannot get them close enough. They need to crop, and also maintain the quality of their images while doing so. That's where cameras with high megapixel counts come in.

This is the uncropped version of the photograph above.

This pair of pileated woodpeckers were approximately 40 yards from my kitchen window. I was using a Fuji X-T20 camera and the longest lens I owned at the time, the inexpensive but very sharp Fujinon XC 50-230 f4.5-6.3. At full extension the focal length was equivalent to a 345mm lens on a full-frame camera.

This is the final crop. Well more than a hundred percent and still very sharp. In fact, I clicked on View and Actual Pixels in Photoshop and the eyes and feathers are still fairly sharp. But you can't go a whole lot farther with a 24 megapixel sensor.

I'm happy with these pictures, but since I seldom do this kind of photography it's not worth my while to buy a high-megapixel camera and jam up my hard drive with over-large files. Those who need this kind of capability know who they are. The rest of us, not so much.

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      megapixels     pileated woodpeckers      Fuji X-T20 digital camera      Fujinon XC 50-230mm lens      Photoshop

Just Ramblin'

 Abandoned store/gas station. Probably U.S. Highway 19 north of Dahlonega.

 From about 2004 to 2010 I did a lot of rambling around the northeast Georgia mountains. Even though I lived in northwest Georgia, northeast Georgia seemed richer to me in the things I liked to photograph

I didn't have any set purpose in mind, but as I made these photographs, ideas for the book that ultimately became Georgia: A Backroads Portrait began to take shape in my mind. And although I have not yet found a publisher for the book, I firmly believe it is my best work. I am a visual historian of mid-twentieth roadside culture and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.

 Batesville General Store. GA Highways 197/255, Habersham County.

Although neither of these pictures made it into the book, many of the others that I took on these northeast Georgia trips did. But as I put the book together, with the help of my friend Michael Largent, the distinguished graph designer and design teacher, I was suprised to find that at least as many of the selected photographs came from my own northwest Georgia as from northeast Georgia. Go figure.

Both of these photos were made with the underrated but very good eight megapixel Canon EOS 20D.

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      Canon EOS 20D      Northwest Georgia mountains      Northeast Georgia  mountains      Habersham County     Dahlonega     Georgia

Georgia Small Towns: Crawfordville

The single-turret Taliaferro County courthouse. Funky High Victorian Eclectic style.

Crawfordville is an unique little east central Georgia town. With a population of about 530, it's the county seat of Taliaferro (pronounced "Tolliver"—don't ask me why) County. With 1462 residents in 2020, Taliaferro is the least populous county in Georgia and has the second smallest population east of the Mississippi River. In fact, I've always wondered if the county was only able to afford one turret for its courthouse.

Nonetheless, Crawfordville and Taliaferro County are well-known in the film industry and are very popular locations for movie-making. Thirteen movies, including Get Low (2009), Pushing up Daisies (2007), Sweet Home Alabama (2001), Neon Bible (1994), Stars and Bars (1987), GORP (1979), and Summer of my German Soldier (1978), have been filmed in whole or in part in Crawfordville. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Crawfordville’s downtown has hardly changed since the early 1900s, making it a perfect movie set. 

 Crawfordville's one-block-long business district looks as it did in the early 1900s.

 A. H. Stephens State Park borders Crawfordville on the north. We camped there for two weeks in the summer of 2021 and enjoyed eating at Nicky's restaurant in the business block.

The park offers facilities for camping, boating, hiking, and picnicking on its 1177 acres; however, it may be best known for its 21 miles of horseback riding trails and facilities for horsecamping.

Near the park entrance is Liberty Hall. Built in 1875, it was the home of Confederate Vice-President and Georgia governor Alexander Hamilton Stephens. It has been fully restored and houses one of Georgia's largest collections of Civil War artifacts.

Not Crawfordville Presbyterian Church?

 

I've always thought this was the Crawfordville Presbyterian Church, but apparently I was mistaken. I made the photo on film sometime in the 1990s, but my travel notebook from that period was lost several years ago. It's loss is often a serious handicap. I'm pretty sure this church is in Crawfordville, but it is not the Presbyterian church according to the pictures I've found online. Any readers from Crawfordville who can help me out?

 

Photos: The courthouse and street scene were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Classic and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. The church was photographed on film, but since my notebook was lost, I don't know which camera was used.

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      Canon EOS 5D Classic      Georgia      Crawfordville       Taliferro County     A.H. Stephens State Park     Canon EF 24-85mm lens

How many Megapixels Do You Need?

 Fall at our pond on Deer Run Farm. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

How many megapixels must your digital camera have to make good photos? 

The answer is -- many fewer than you probably think!

The photo above was made with an Olympus E-M5, with a sensor only about one fourth the size of the sensors in so-called full frame cameras, and only 16 megapixels. Yet, the picture you see was printed 48 inches wide (that's four feet, in case you weren't too good at math), and is satisfyingly sharp. It hung above our fireplace every fall for several years.

Short's Mill, Clarkesville, Georgia.

This photograph of Short's Mill was made with a Canon 5D, the original model, often referred to as the Classic. It had a 12-megapixel, full frame sensor. I used it with great satisfaction for eight years. The photo runs across two pages in my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. No one has ever suggested it isn't sharp enough.

Fellow photo-blogger Bill Fortney. a Fuji camera user, decided to select his favorite 30 photographs from the last 12 years. To his great surprise, 28 of the 30 were made with the 16-megapixel Fuji X-T1. Read about it here.  

I currently use two Fuji cameras -- An X-T20 and an X-H1. They each have 24-megapixel sensors, which I consider ideal. Enough for all the enlargeability one could wish, yet not big enough to overload my hard drive with unnecessarily large files.

But the camera ads and most of the photography blogs and web sites will tell you that you need more, more, more megapixels. I understand that. They want to keep you spending, spending, spending to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. It's all about the money. So if you simply must have the latest and greatest and can afford it, follow their lead.

My advice? If you have cameras you like, that give you good results, save your money.

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      Olympus E-M5      Canon EOS 5D Classic      Fuji X-T1      Fuji X-T20       Fuji X-H1     Short's Mill

The Best Way to Learn Photography

Man of Mayalan village, in the northern Guatemalan mountains.

Photography looks easy. Modern cameras focus for us, set the exposure (and often get it right, or close enough), can fire off a dozen frames so we can choose the best one (assuming at least one of them will be good), and can shoot hundreds of frames and store them all on a tiny card. It's all amazingly convenient. And you might even get a few worthwhile pictures that way.

But that is something anyone can do. Good photography isn't easy, no matter what the camera ads tell you. So, how do you rise to the level of making pictures that please you consistently?

One of the best ways I've found to improve your photography is to study your own pictures. Look through your photographs. When you find one you especially like, ask yourself what it is that you like about it. Of course you will like pictures of subjects that are important to you, but that's not what I'm talking about. Look at the composition, the way a picture is framed. Look at the light. How is it revealing the subject? How about timing? Did you shoot a little too soon or too late? Is the exposure appropriate, or is it too light or too dark? If you think the picture could be improved, ask yourself how you could make it better. Likewise, study the failures. How could you have made them better?

Another man of Mayalan. Which do you prefer? Why?

Look at your own photographs with a critical eye, and also look at the work of other photographers to see what you can learn from them. There are scads of photographs online, but I prefer to study them in books. Libraries have always been a resource for me. Check out your local library to see what they have. 

Photos: Olympus OM camera, Vivitar 75-205 f3.8 lens. Not a particularly distinguished lens, but in sharp light it gives sharp results. 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      travel      Guatemala      Mayalan      Olympus OM cameras       Fujichrome 100 film     Vivitar 75-205mm f3.8 lens

Up, Up and Away!

 Ready to launch, waiting for the wind.

In the late 1970s/early '80s, McCarty's Bluff on Lookout Mountain was the setting for the World Hang-gliding championships, with teams coming from as far away as Australia to compete. The event was sponsored by Glider Rider magazine, and I was commissioned by the publisher, Tracy Knauss to document the first few years of the event.

Lookout Mountain Flight Park, located on Georgia Highway 189, about 20 minutes southwest of Chattanooga, is still very much in business. McCarty's Bluff is about 1500 feet above Lookout Valley and has prevailing winds from the west, making it possible to fly almost every day.

Leaving the bluff, flying into the setting sun.

I had my Olympus OM cameras in those days, loaded with Kodak Ektachrome film. (This was several years before my switch to Fujichrome.) Although I had a full set of lenses, including the Olympus Zuiko 21mm f3.5 ultra-wide, which was used for the photograph at the top of this post, the hot lens of the day was the new Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f2.8 zoom. Now nearly forgotten, it was the first of the really good mid-range zoom lenses. A little heavy by today's standards, it was nonetheless a great lens and enabled me to get some shots I would not otherwise have been able to get. I had Olympus Power Winders attached to my cameras, which enabled me to shoot at one frame per second. Seems pathetic in these days of cameras that can shoot 10, 20, and more frames per second, but it was enough. Since these were the days before auto-focus, there was no point in shooting faster than I could focus.

Soaring like an eagle.

 Some of the time I was on the bluff photographing launches, and sometimes I was in the valley below photographing landings. On one occasion, I saw a glider launch from the mountain high above me. Just as he launched, the wind apparently failed and he went swooping straight down toward the trees. He managed to pull out just milli-seconds before destruction. When he landed, I saw something fall off his glider. I went over to see what it was. It was a freshly-broken, leafy twig!

Flying over the western slope of Lookout Mountain.

 In an interesting sidelight, one of the Australian glider pilots stayed on in Chattanooga, married a local girl, and became a professional photographer and one of my competitors!

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    Hang gliding     Olympus OMcameras     Olympus Zuiko lenses    Lookout Mountain     Lookout Mountain Flight Park     McCarty's Bluff     Kodak Ektachrome film     Vivitar Series One 70-210mm lens     World Hang Gliding Championships     Olympus Power Winders

Why Not Just Shoot with Your Cell Phone?

 Dogwoods in Bloom

This photo could have been made

with a cell phone camera. (But wasn't.)

Olympus E-PL1, 14-42mm Zuiko lens.

(Blog Note: Life has been getting in the way a lot recently, so today I'm re-posting a blog from June, 2020.)

What's the point of carrying a camera, anyway?

Cell phones are an easy way to to make and share spontaneous pictures in the spirit of George Eastman’s “You push the button and we do the rest.” So you might well ask “Why not just shoot with a cell phone?”

Most people, I'm sure, are perfectly happy to do just that. Why would anyone choose to fool with cameras and lenses and all that related photo paraphernalia when cell phone cameras are so convenient and capable? But there are some of us for whom cell phones just not enough.We may be a minority, but we want something more.

For me, at least, there are a number of good reasons why I choose to use a camera rather than a phone.

First, Better Pictures. When I’m out and about with a camera, I’m usually attuned, even if only on a subconscious level, to looking for things that will make good pictures. With a cell phone, not so much, although something may slap me upside the head, like the three ladies and the baby in my post of June 1, 2020. I almost didn’t go back and take that picture.

Second, Control. Cell phone cameras don’t offer much in the way of control, although they are improving in that regard. Exposure and focus are automatic, and the vast, vast majority of happy-snappers wouldn’t have it any other way. But if I want to decide what my exposure should be, whether I want much or little depth-of-field, whether I want to use a fast or slow shutter speed, or exactly where I want to focus, I need a real camera. All these capabilities are the reason we call them real cameras.

Dall Sheep in Denali National Park, Alaska

This photo could not have been taken with a

cell phone camera. Olympus OM-D E-M5,

Panasonic 14-140mm lens at 260mm equivalent.

Third, Capability. Most cell phone cameras come with a somewhat wide-angle lens. If I want a lens with a wider angle of view, or a normal or telephoto field of view, I need a real camera.

Fourth, Quality. Cell phone cameras have very small sensors. And while some of them are surprisingly good, everything else being equal, the larger sensors in real cameras will always be sharper and clearer, especially in larger prints.

 

Fifth, The Intangibles. A good camera gives me pleasure that a cell phone simply cannot provide. There’s the pleasure of owning and using an object of high quality workmanship. There’s the pleasure of mastering and using the skills necessary to operate such a complex tool. And finally, as I said in my previous post, I simply like cameras. I like holding them (don't call it fondling, please) I like reading about them, and I especially like using them.

Different strokes for different folks.

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     cell phones     Olympus E-PL1 digital camera     Olympus Zuiko 14-42mm lens    Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm lens     Olympus E-M5 digital camera     Alaska     Dall sheep

Devlin Discovers the Sprinkler

 

Devlin gets sprayed.

This will be a short post because we just got home and it's late. Our water heater went out last week, and while we wait for a replacement we've been going to our son's house on the other side of town to take showers. So I'm just going to write a few words about how I find photographs.

I don't much go out looking for photographs these days, especially since we moved to Knoxville. There was a time when I did, but most of my photographs for the last several years have come from magazine or book assignments, self-generated projects, or out of my life as I lived it. 

Family, at least if you have one like mine, can be a rich source of photos if you keep your eyes open and your camera handy. This is my grandson Devlin, not quite three years old, becoming acquainted with a sprinkler. Devlin is 23 now, and a student at the University of Tennessee studying something so advanced I don't even know how to tell you about it. I suspect he does not consider this his finest moment. 

The photo was made in 2004 with my first digital camera, the Canon EOS 10D and a 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 EF 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     family      Knoxville     University of Tennessee    Canon EOS 10D     Canon EF 28-105mm lens

Georgia Small Towns: Greensboro

The Old Rock Gaol in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia.

Located just off Interstate 20 about 75 miles east of Atlanta, the town of Greensboro, founded in 1786, is the county seat of Greene County and is the doorway to Lake Oconee, with 400 miles of shoreline and ten championship golf courses. The population in 2024 was about 3,600.

Greensboro is notable for a number of historic buildings, including the Old Rock Gaol (Gaol is the way the English spell jail). Built in 1807, it has granite walls two feet thick and was patterned after the Bastille in Paris. The original cells and gallows are all still in place.

The Greene County Courthouse.

The Greek Revival Greene County courthouse in downtown Greensboro was built in 1848. It is the eighth oldest courthouse in Georgia and the second oldest still in use. The upper floor was designed to house the Masonic Lodge, which it does to this day.

Across the street from the courthouse is the Yesterday Cafe, famous for Buttermilk Pie and other good things. Country music star Carrie Underwood ordered 300 of the pies for her wedding reception.

At the intersection of Main and Broad streets stands McCommons Big Store, once the largest store between Atlanta and Augusta, and boasting of selling "everything from the cradle to the grave." It is now home to the Greensboro Antique Mall and other shops.

The Davis-Evans House.

On West Broad Street, next to the Methodist Church is the lovely Davis-Evans House, built in 1854. It served as the parsonage for many years and is now the Parish House.

The Happy Times House.

 The Happy Times House at 205 West Broad Street was built iin 1824 and was once a dormitory for Greensboro Female College. Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, was once a teacher there.

The Spinks-Kinitra House at 201 West Greene Street was built sometime before 1846.

One thing not to be missed in Greensboro is the Ripe Thing Market at 112 West Broad. Featuring fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables and grass-fed hormone-free meat, poultry, and lamb, they also serve outstanding home-made soups, deli sandwiches, and fresh-baked desserts.

(All photos were made with Olympus E-M5 digital cameras and the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm 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      Georgia     Greensboro    Greene County     Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-32mm lens     Olympus E-M5 digital camera

A New Picture for Summer

Butterfly on azaleas, Deer Run Farm, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

Blog Note: I apologize for not posting on Wednesday. I had an outpatient procedure which kept me in a bit of a funk for a few days.

For many years now, we have had a large canvas print for each season of the year hanging above our fireplace. This summer, we have a new one. It's a photo of a butterfly on some azaleas in our back yard at Deer Run Farm and was made with a Fuji X-T20 and the inexpensive but very sharp Fujinon XC 50-230mm lens.

The picture below was our winter print this year: 

It's a photograph of Chickamauga Creek and Pigeon Mountain at the back of our farm in McLemore Cove after the Great Blizzard of 1993. It was made with a Canon EOS film camera on Fujichrome 100 film and scanned with a Konica-Minolta DiMage 5400 scanner.

Having these large prints hanging where we can live with them every day is something both Louise and I enjoy very much. So far, I haven't made any photos of Knoxville/East Tennessee that I like well enough to use above our fireplace, but who knows? Maybe by this time next year. . .

You can see a few more of our fireplace panels here.

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     Deer Run Farm      McLemore Cove     Chickamauga Creek     Pigeon Mountain     Georgia     Pentax 6x7 camera    Canon EOS camera     Fujicron XC 50-230mm lens     Fujichrome 100 film     Fuji X-T20 camera     Konica-Minolta DiMage 5400 scanner    Blizzard of 1993