One EMT, Good to Go!

An EMT at the heliport, Emory Medical Center Midtown

 

If you're familiar with downtown Atlanta you can probably tell that this photo was taken at the heliport of top of Emory University Hospital Midtown, originally Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital. The tall structure in the background is easy to recognize as the Coca-Cola building.     

I think this good-to-go young man may have been an actual EMT, not just some other photogenic employee of the medical center standing in for the photo.

I didn't remember just how I had lit this photograph, so I enlarged it in Photoshop for a closer look. The main light, of course, was the sun. Looking at the square catchlights in his eyes at high magnification told me that I had used an electronic flash unit in a square softbox to fill the shadows.

By the way, the most important piece of equipment for this week-long assignment at Emory Medical Center was not my camera. It was my 30x40-inch, four-wheeled, rubber-tired cart! Since the job required several cases of lighting equipment, a camera case, a bag of light stands, and a tripod, and since I worked without an assistant to help me move things around the very large hospital, it would have been a nightmare without the cart. Just one more important tool in the life of a commercial photographer that few would even think of. 

Some people appear to think of a photographer as someone flitting around like a butterfly snapping pictures hither and yon, but there's far more to the practice of commercial photography than people imagine.

Blog note: Very soon I will be posting a link to a web site where many of my pictures will be available for order at very reasonable prices for yourself or for gifts. Watch this space.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

A Cool Clinician at Emory Medical Center

"Cardiac Technician" at Emory Medical Center

This poised young lady with the perfect makeup and confident expression was posed with a cardiac monitor in a hallway at Emory Medical Center in Atlanta for another in the series of personnel recruitment ads I did for the hospital.

Lighting for this setup was relatively simple: floodlights instead of electronic flashes because I could use bulbs with the same color temperature as the ambient light. I set one light stand to my right (her left). You can see the effect of that light by the shadow on her tunic and also by the soft highlight on her left cheek. A second light was placed at camera position and a little farther away to open up the shadows.

A third light was placed down the hall behind her to supplement the wall fixtures and bring the hall illumination to the proper level to make the subject stand out.

The model was a hospital employee chosen for her appearance and overall demeanor of competence. She was easy to work with and everyone was happy with the finished product.

The camera was a Canon 10D, my first digital camera. Only six megapixels, which sounds like nothing these days, but the files looked great for their intended purpose.

Blog Note: I'm busy this week doing a final edit on the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia. It's supposed to be released in December, but things are not moving very quickly at the publishers. We'll see.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

A Week in the Hospital

Radiologist, Emory Medical Center, Atlanta

Not long after acquiring my first digital camera, a Canon 10D, I was given a week-long assignment to photograph medical personnel at Emory Medical Center in Atlanta. The purpose of the photos was to create a series of advertisements for the purpose of recruiting new employees for the hospital.

I photographed doctors, nurses, technicians, EMTs, and other medical and non-medical people in various settings. The outcome was a series of ads which ran half-page size in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other places.

Lighting the radiologist and his screens was a minor problem -- I had to get sufficient light on the man without washing out the screens. It was accomplishing by combining a time exposure for the screens with a quick burst of electronic flash for the doctor. Just one of the many challenges that make commercial photography endlessly interesting to me.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.

 

Variety Is the Spice of Life

 Karma at Sunset Rock, Lookout Mountain

One of the wonderful things about my life as a professional photographer is the great variety of assignments that come my way. Yesterday, a set-up furniture shot for an ad campaign, today an annual report shoot, tomorrow a brochure or an album cover, the day after an audio-visual program. Another day, executive portraits. I've enjoyed it all. Truly, variety has been a spice in my life.

The creative director in charge of design and production of the annual report for Chattanooga's Cornerstone Community Bank (since absorbed by SmartBank) asked me to make some photographs tying into the theme of "stone." Since the Chattanooga area abounds in stone of all sizes, from pebbles to Lookout Mountain, that promised to be an easy and enjoyable assignment. 

For the cover photo I posed my long-time assistant Karma Newland on Sunset Rock, a cliff on the west side of Lookout very popular with rock climbers. The sun had just set, but the afterglow in the western sky provided plenty of soft light. If I had made the photo before the sun disappeared the light would have been too harsh.

The lights in Lookout Valley, more than a thousand feet below, make it appear as though she is on a rocky promontory above an ocean, with a passing ship in the darkening sea.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.

A Day iin the Life of a Working Photographer

 Shooting an ad for Kerala Carpets

The purpose of this photograph will probably not be immediately obvious, but it is actually an advertising shot for the carpet maker, showing the carpet as part of a lifestyle.

The setting was in front of the french doors in the great room of our former home. The furniture and accessories, however, were not ours -- everything was borrowed from furniture stores and other sources by the art director in charge of the project and brought into our house. I could have created this set in my studio, but it was easier and much cheaper to do it this way. It would have required a great deal of carpentry, painting, etc., and even with all that it would have been difficult to duplicate the lovely outdoor background and lighting in a studio.

To balance the light streaming in from outdoors, I used two studio electronic flash units, being very careful to place them to minimize the reflections in the window glass. Actually, they are there, if you know where to look, but very diffused and minimal.

On a sturdy tripod was the trusty Mamiya RB67 medium format camera I used for most studio work. The lens was the Mamiya-Sekor 127mm f4.5. The film, as usual, was Fujichrome 100 in 120 size. 

Setting up for the session, making the photos, then clearing everything out and putting our home back in order took most of a day -- just another day in the life of a working photographer.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.

Rock City Barn TN-9

 Rock City Barn TN-9 

This barn is located on Tennessee Highway 58, just south of Kingston. I first photographed it 28 years ago, on October 24th, 1994 while on my first extended trip to photograph Rock City's barns; a trip that took me up U.S. 11, then TN 58, and then on to northern Kentucky on U.S. 27 .

I made the best photograph I could, but something wasn't right that day -- I don't remember if it was the time of day, the direction of the light, or something else. But I knew this scene held promise of a better picture if I could find it, so I made a mental note to come back and try again. I often went back to a barn that I felt had more potential than I was able to capture the first time around if a subsequent trip took me back into the area.

I was not able to get back to this barn before the Rock City Barns book was published, so the picture in the book is not the one you see here. I did get there eventually, though, and everything came together beautifully -- the light, the sky, the cattle in the foreground. And the freshly repainted See Rock City sign. 

I'm not sure exactly when this photo was made, but it was on film, so it was taken before 2003, the year I switched to digital photography. The camera would have been a Canon A2 and the film, as always, was Fujichrome 100D.

Sometime later the owners of the property contacted me and bought a 24 by 36-inch print to hang in their living room.

If you don't have Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, amazon.com still has copies, both new and used.

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.

Precious Prints

  Rob, Louise, and Donny at Fall Creek Falls (Tennessee) State Park.

In the summer of 1969 we spent two memorable weeks camping at Fall Creek Falls State Park. I shot only two or three rolls of 120 print film in a Yashica twin-lens reflex camera, but made pictures that I still treasure.

Pure essence of Louise. Always good-to-go, always ready to take on life with zest.

 

I have these cherished photographs because I made prints. Of course, in those days you made prints because that was the only way to see your pictures (unless you shot slide film). Now, 53 years later, I can still enjoy my pictures. If I had been shooting with a digital camera in those long-ago golden days I most probably would not have these pictures unless I had made prints. Electronic files can deteriorate or get lost or erased in a multitude of ways. But I made prints and I have these pictures. And hundreds more.

 

Our young family in 1969. Camera on a tripod with self-timer.

Photographs and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.