Photographic Composition 101 Part II: More about Framing

Sunrise on Tybee Island

Sometimes you can put the subject quite literally in a frame, as in this photograph of a sunrise on the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia, as seen through an old anchor just above the beach. Unfortunately, I don't remember what camera I used to make this picture, but it was probably an Olympus OM2n. The film was almost certainly Fujichrome 100, since that has been my film of choice since around 1986.

The Warm Springs Hotel, Warm Springs, Georgia

The frieze and column of a shop across the street form a frame for the old Warm Springs Hotel Bread and Breakfast, taken on my return trip to west Georgia in 2010 to complete my tour around the state. This photograph was made with one of my very favorite cameras -- a classic Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex,  using Fujicrome 100 film in 2-14 X 2-1/4 size. I should use this camera more often! The two photos above are from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.

City Hall, Barnesville, Georgia

Surely the funkiest city hall in the entire United States!

 

Framing adds depth to a picture by drawing the eye to the main subject. Sometimes however, there are subjects that are so distinctive they can stand on their own. The unique City Hall in Barnesville, Georgia is what is, as it is, and needs nothing but a straight-on presentation. This photograph could not be improved by anything I could do to enhance it, whether by choosing a different angle or looking for something in the foreground to frame it. I love the way the street lamp reflects the curve of the arched windows. I used a Canon EOS 6D digital camera for this photo, with an EF 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens.

 Photographs and text copyright 1992-2022, 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

 

 

Photographic Composition 101 Part I: Put It in a Frame

 

Above are two photographs of the beautiful, old Starr's Mill, a few miles south of Fayetteville, Georgia. They were taken at different times and with different cameras, however, looking at each file at high magnification, there appears to be no difference in photographic quality.

Which one do you prefer? Can you say why?

Although the second photo is sharp and has beautiful light and color, most people prefer the first one, even though many probably could not say why. The mill looks great in the second one, but there's no feeling of depth and no place for your eye to rest. In the first one, the tree on the right, the rocks on the shore, and the dam all combine to lead the eye to the mill. They form a frame around it,  which gives the picture a a sense of depth and dimensionality.

"Framing" a photo is a very effective compositional technique, and one I use a lot. In this photograph of Short's Mill near Clarkesville, Georgia, the mill is actually only a small part of the picture, yet the stone ledge, flowing water, and autumn tree form a frame to lead the eye to the old mill. 

There many ways to put the subject of your photograph in a frame. For instance, in this photo of a children's Sunday School class, the way the children's heads are turned direct the viewer's eye to the teacher and the child she is speaking to. 

I don't use this technique of framing for every shot, of course, but I think if you learn to look for opportunities to put a frame in your pictures it will improve your photography.

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

Birthing a Book

Chicken Farmer Danny Gandy

"This is not a fighting cock" 

US Hwy 41, Cook County

Continued from previous post. . .

Over the next year or two I made a few day-trips to round out my coverage as the book began to take shape in my mind. I narrowed down the selection of photographs, wrote an introduction, a number of brief essays to go with some of the pictures, and asked my son Rob, a really fine writer, to write a foreword.

Then I loaded everything on a flash drive and took it to my long-time friend Michael Largent, who knows everything there is to know about design. It was amazing to watch him as he sequenced the pictures and put them all in order with the text and the captions -- all in one day!

Your Yard Sale Place

GA Hwy 32, Bacon County

 

We sent it off to Blurb.com, an online printer, and a few weeks later I had in my hands a beautiful, 12 by 12-inch, 144-page book. You can see it for yourself at https://www.blurb.com/books/4973943-georgia-a-backroads-portrait.

All the photographs in this post and the previous one are in the book, along with nearly 130 more. If you would like to have a copy, contact me at djphoto@vol.com or send a text message to 423-240-2324.

Disclaimer: I must tell you that since the book is a limited edition and I only have a few printed at a time, it is not cheap.

I will probably never sell enough to recover what I've already invested, but I wanted to create a visual ode to Georgia, the state where I lived for 44 years.

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

Around Georgia with a Camera

Chaise Lounge

U.S. 129, Irwin County

 

Sorry this post is a day late. Like I said, sometimes life gets in the way.

In 2004 I begin taking occasional day-trips around north Georgia, looking for whatever interesting things I could find to photograph. In 2010 I took some of the money I earned from an architectural job and spent a week driving around the perimeter of Georgia to see if I could find enough interesting photos to complete the book I had in mind.

Accordingly, on May 5th I laid down the back seats of my 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan, put in an air mattress, a sleeping bag, and some clothes, and set out on my quest.

Since I had already covered north Georgia pretty thoroughly, I headed to the east central part of the state looking for whatever I could find.

Please keep in mind what I've said several times on this blog, that the most important ability in photography is the ability to notice things. Unfortunately, I'm kinda slow, so the way this process works for me is that I see something, go on down the road for a half-mile or so while the thought slowly penetrates my brain, "Hey, that might make a good photo!" and then search for a place to turn around, or, if the road is deserted, a wide spot where I can make a U-turn.

Satellite Dish

Georgia Highway 22, Taliferro County

 

 I worked my way down the east side of Georgia, then across the bottom of the state, then up the west side about as far as Butler, which is west of Macon. At that point I had used up my allotted time for the trip and went home. A few weeks later I made a three-day trip down the west side of the state as far as Warm Springs to complete the circuit.

Crazy Spider

Georgia Highway 193, Walker County

 

 So how was it, as a then-72-year-old man, sleeping in my van for a week? Actually, it was fine. I mostly slept in WalMart parking lots, although I slept one night at a truck stop. That was kinda noisy. Otherwise, I was very comfortable and slept well. I brought with me a small, battery-powered fan, in case the nights were hot, but only used it one time.

All the photographs in this post were made with the original Canon EOS 5D (a great camera -- I used it for eight years) and various Canon lenses. I also carried  a Canon EOS 20D as backup, but didn't use it much. 

To be continued. . .

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

 

Connectivity Revisited

The Watcher on the Wall

Syracuse, New York, 1974

This photograph has absolutely nothing to do with the post below.

But I don't want miss an opportunity to point out that the most

important ability in photography is the ability to notice things.

 

Back in July I wrote about a persistent problem in RV living -- connectivity. You can read about it here. Most of us are at least some what dependent on our cell phones, tablets, computers, and smart TVs for social interaction, work, and entertainment, Those of us who live in RVs have more difficulty with connectivity because we don't have landlines, cable is not available in all campgrounds, and satellite reception is expensive and requires special equipment. The wifi provided in most campgrounds, if they have it all, is miserably slow.

After some experimentation, the solution we found for our connectivity problem was to use two cell-phone carriers. Louise and I have our cell phone service with Consumer Cellular. We also have a third line with them which feeds into the chip in a little mobile hotspot device we ordered from Amazon, The combination provides us with 50 gigs of data and costs about $96 a month,

The other part of the solution is the 100 gigs of data we get from T-Mobile for only $50 per month and which we access through another mobile hotspot.

We use the T-Mobile data for streaming TV and our Apple computers. My PC (main computer), for some reason will only run on Consumer Cellular data. We can use either for phones and iPads.

So this pretty much solved our connectivity problems. Except one.

When someone breaks a hip and spends a lot of time in front of the TV streaming NCIS, all bets are off! (Also, I have to confess to participating in binge-watching The Good Witch.) 

All this resulted in hitting the dreaded slowdown on the 20th for T-Mobile and the 24th for Consumer Cellular. Last night it was so bad I couldn't post. So that's why you're getting this in the afternoon rather than this morning.

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 Little Chitchat about Film and Film Cameras

Confederate Calvaryman at a Civil War Re-enactment

Olympus OM2sp, 65-200 f4 Zuiko lens

When digital cameras began to take over the market in the early 2000s, the bottom dropped out of the market for film cameras. But now, interest in film and film cameras has been undergoing a resurgence. 

My main workhorses before my switch to digital in 2003 were a pair of Canon EOS A2s, excellent but underrated cameras. In fact, those were the cameras with which I photographed the Rock City Barns book, Georgia: A Backroads Portrait, and many other projects and commercial jobs between 1994 and 2003. But by 2005, I couldn't even get $35 apiece for them. So I put them on the shelf in honored retirement and later gave one of them to Charlie Carlson, who has been a good friend since 1972. Although since he lives in the Soviet Socialist state of California, I haven't seen him for at least 35 years. But we stay in touch by email. He's a camera enthusiast, and we occasionally buy, sell, trade, or give each other cameras.

Meanwhile, prices of good used film cameras are moving steadily upward and there are now numerous blogs on the internet devoted to film and film cameras.

 Recently, Charlie asked my opinion about the best model of Olympus OM film camera to get for his son.

He wrote: "For some time there was a great debate going on about the OM2 and the OM2n versus the OM2sp. They came marked in both "N" and "Sp". The great difference being that the spot meter was either a blessing or curse. Have you got any opinion on this?"

(The OM2sp was an OM2 that offered both spot metering and programmed exposure mode.)

I replied, "Well, Charlie, as you know, opinions are like anus's. Everyone has one, and most of them stink. However, having owned and used all three cameras extensively, I can tell you that the OM2n is the pick of the litter. Beginning in 1978, I owned and used, at various times, and many of them concurrently, the OM1, OM2, OM2n, OM2sp, OM-PC, and OM10, but the OM2n was my workhouse from the early '80s to about '93, when I switched to Canon because of my growing need for autofocus, and the growing perception that Olympus was not going to come out with a professional autofocus body anytime soon.

The spot meter in the SP was a nice feature, but I did not use it much. Almost all my exposures were metered with a hand-held incident meter. On the few occasions when the situation demanded that I act fast or miss the shot, the auto-exposure in the 2n never let me down. I still have a pair of 2ns, one of which works (I think I got it from you), and one which needs to go to the repair shop."

Truthfully, I no longer shoot much film, although I wish I did. If I were a hobbyist I could justify the cost in time and money. But since I need to make a little money on my projects, film is out. If I had used film, to photograph the Backroads and Byways book, it would have cost $1700, providing I did the processing myself. The cost would have been much more to send the film out.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see the rising interest in film photography. I worked with film nearly twice as long as I've worked with digital, and color slide film will always be my favorite medium. (Both photos here made on Fujichrome.)

After Evening Chapel at the Mission Hospital, Abak, Ibom, Nigeria

I believe this is the best photograph I've ever made. It's about beauty and mystery, which to me is the essence of photography. OM2N with a Tamron 100-300 f4 lens, 1/15th second, f4, at 300mm, autoexposure.

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

 

Tags: Canon film cameras, Canon EOS A2, Olympus OM film cameras, OM-1, OM2, OM2n, OMsp, OM-PC, OM10, Fujichrome film

When Life Gets in the Way

The Harville House: A Magnificent Ruin

Built in 1894, the Harville House in Bulloch County has been

allowed to become a ruin, but it still displays its former

magnificence. (Notice my truck in the left background.)

Fuji XH-1, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens

 

 Welcome back, Dear Readers, assuming there are any. As I wrote in the intro to this blog,

"This blog is about photography, about life, and about my life in photography. I'll be talking about the tools, techniques, and philosophy of photography, about some of the things that happen in my life, and whatever else crosses my mind."

Today it's about life.

At the end of every post on this blog is a line that says "I post each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way."

Well, life has been in the way.

We spent the fall camped near Knoxville and spent the holidays with our son Don and his family. We also began attending one of our favorite churches, Cedar Springs Presbyterian in Knoxville, the church we had attended via TV during the pandemic. Having been singers most of our lives, Louise and I promptly joined the choir, singing in the church services and ultimately singing in two Christmas concerts, each of which involved multiple practice sessions. It was a busy but very enjoyable time.

I was also selecting, editing, cropping, and otherwise prepping the photographs for the second edition of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia, plus more editing of the text. I have to turn it all in by the end of February.

On January 4th we said goodbye to our family and friends in Knoxville and pointed the truck and RV toward Florida. We planned to stop for a few days at the campground in Chattanooga where we spent last winter to see our doctor and take care of a few business matters, but on our second day there Louise had a dizzy spell, fell, and broke her hip. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital and the next day had surgery to pin the bones back together. She is doing very well and starts physical therapy this week, but apparently we are not going to make it to Florida until March. All this reminds me again of the old proverb "Man plans, God laughs!"

However, if this had to happen, this was a good place for it. We lived in this area for many years and have many friends here. But I could sure use some of that good Florida weather right now, because it's been cold as a Wican's mammery.

I realize that none of this is a good excuse for suspending my blog for so long. Truth is, I had just gotten stale and felt I had run out of things to write about. My granddaughter, Jennifer Steinmetz, herself a very fine writer, encouraged me to restart the blog and keep plugging away.

(The photo above is from a new chapter I'm adding to the Backroads and Byways book.)

Photograph and text copyright 2021, 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