Blue and Gold
Chickamauga Creek* near its source in McLemore Cove,Walker County, Georgia.
October is the best of all months.
Some may prefer April or May, and I like them too, but I love October. The summer heat has broken so the nights are cool, but the days are mostly warm and since it doesn’t usually rain much the skies are clear almost every day.
October light is the most beautiful because the air is so clear that the long, slanting rays of the southward-moving sun illuminate everything in their paths with a special brilliance while casting everything else in deep shadow. Fall color usually peaks right around the last week of October in the North Georgia mountains. Leaf colors are softer than they are farther north, but no less beautiful.
October is the month for the first frost, for arts and crafts fairs, for a briskness in the air that makes you glad to be alive, and for taking someone you love for a long walk to look at the leaves.
(Text and photograph are from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. This little essay is one of my favorite bits of writing, which is why I republish it.)
*Chickamauga Creek flows from south to north, through the village of Chickamauga and Chickamauga Battlefield, to both of which it lends its name. The creek, in turn, takes its name from the Chickamaugas, a sub-tribe of the Cherokee.
The photo was made with my old reliable Pentax 6x7 with the 105mm f2.4 Takumar lens and Fujichrome 100 film.
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Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
