A Man of Vision

Founder/CEO of a High-Tech Recruitment Company

The concept for this portrait was the brainchild of Michael Largent, long-time friend and frequent client. (He says we've done more than 50 projects together. I wasn't counting.) When I first met him he was a gung-ho young newspaper photographer.

Michael has had a long and distinguished career as a graphic designer, creative director, owner of his own design agency, and now, professor of graphic design at a college. At the time of this particular project he was the Director of Marketing for a recruitment firm (headhunters, in other words) that specialized in staffing for the IT, engineering, and telecommunications fields. The purpose of the portrait was to portray the founder/CEO of the company as a man of vision.

The camera used was my Calumet-Cambo 4x5 view camera with a 210mm f5.6 Rodenstock lens, chosen because the movable front standard of a view camera allowed me to control the depth of field. For those who aren't familiar with this type of camera, I'll explain:

A View Camera

A view camera consists of two standards mounted on a rail. The front standard holds the lens and the rear standard holds the ground-glass focusing screen and sheets of film in a special holder. By tipping the top of the front standard forward the depth of field is increased, and by tipping it backward, the depth of field can be reduced. Which is what I did in this portrait.

The subject was placed several feet from a gray wall. A fairly contrasty main light was set to the subject's right, and behind him and aimed to slant along the wall was a second light partially covered with a yellow gel. The subject was wearing a yellow tie specially chosen by Michael to fit the color scheme.

I  took readings with a Minolta incident light meter, then focused, put a Polaroid film holder on the camera, and made a few Polaroid test prints to make sure we were in the ball park. When the final Polaroid looked good, I exposed one sheet of 4x5 Fujichrome 100 color transparency film. That piece of film in its holder was marked and set aside. It would be processed first and evaluated, then all the other film we shot would be processed in one batch, with the processing time adjusted as needed if the test sheet indicated over or under exposure. That was the way we did it in those days. Cumbersome? Yeah, but we didn't have any better way to do it, and actually, got quiet good at it.

I exposed 12 more sheets of film, then called it a wrap. The CEO was patient during the process (not something CEOs are known for), but Michael and I both felt he had reached his limit. The photo at the top of this post was the best one, and Michael and I both felt we had achieved our goal.

When the CEO got up from the posing stool he took off the yellow tie and gave it to Michael. "I hate this tie," he said. Michael still wears it sometimes.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

When Did You Retire?

My father, Byrl Thornton Jenkins on his 90th birthday. October 5, 1999

Or, are you retired? Or, you’re retired, aren’t you? Or, when do you plan to retire?

These are various forms of the question I'm asked frequently as people note my apparent age. The answer to all is no. I haven’t retired, I’m not retired, and I have no plans to retire.

One of the conscious factors in my mind when I chose my profession was that I wanted a career that no one could make me retire from. If I had spent my life working in some other field I might be interested in retiring, but I’ve spent my life doing something I love. Why would I want to retire from that? I’m a photographer. I can still photograph. I’m a writer. I can still write.

I no longer solicit commercial or architectural photography, but occasionally someone offers me a job and I take it. I no longer book weddings on my own, but have kept my hand in the game as a second-shooter for an Atlanta photographer since 2013 and hope to photograph many more with her.

Meanwhile, there are books to be created. There are articles to be written and illustrated. There are a myriad fascinating things to see and do. There are places to go where I haven’t yet been, plus many more I would love to revisit.

One of the Lost Barns of Rock City. Probably my next book.

I’ve taken note of the statistic: everyone who retires dies. And often sooner than he should have. My philosophy is this: Think young. Thinking old will kill you.

My father, an electronics technician, Bible scholar, part-time pastor of small churches, avid photographer, and father of seven children, passed away at the age of 90. He was always active, always pursuing all kinds of knowledge, always looking ahead to the next thing, even after a serious health condition laid him low when he was 89. The last day we spent together, in January, 2000, just a month before he died, we spent the day shopping, even though we had to find a restroom about every hour because of the persistent diarrhea that weakened his heart and finally killed him. But what were we shopping for? A computer system, so he could go online to sell his antiques. He never gave up.

My goal in life is to emulate my father’s faith, courage, and perseverance. So no. I haven't retired and I have no plans to do so.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what you read, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Writing with Light

Sunrise at a Rock City Barn in central Georgia

Photography is about light.  In fact, the word "photograph" comes from two Greek words: photos, which means "light," and grapho, which means "to write."  So to photograph really means to write with light.

The best light for photography usually comes in early morning and late afternoon when the sun is low, casting long shadows which reveal texture and bathe the land in a rich, golden glow.  In summer this often meant 18-hour days, as I tried to capture the good light at both ends of the day.  I might drive several hundred miles checking out barn sites and then double back to photograph an especially good one in evening light; or put up at a nearby motel if I thought morning light would be better.

The mechanic who kept my old Chevy Blazer running told me about this little barn on U.S. 19 south of Butler in Taylor County. It had been lost from Rock City's records and I probably never would have found it without his help. As it happened, he was from that area.

 When I first saw the barn, it was on an overcast day. I made the photo just above, but thought there was potential for a better one. Noting that the barn faced east and that the fields were almost perfectly flat for miles around, I thought a sunrise shot might work.

Of course there's never a motel around when you need one.  After making a photo for the record, I circled around visiting other barn sites before taking shelter at Macon for the night. The next morning I drove 40 miles through the pre-dawn darkness of central Georgia to catch the June sunrise at the barn.

An interesting side note -- you may have noticed how close the barn is to the highway. Just a few years after I made these photos, Highway 19 was scheduled to be widened and the barn was to be destroyed. To preserve it, the Taylor County Agricultural Agent had the barn moved three miles across the fields to his own property. And there, as far as I know, it sits today. I really ought to go check it out.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

A Sense of Wonder

Who in the world abandons a valuable instrument

such as a harp to molder away in a field?

Photograph copyright Judy and Tony King Foundation, 2020

Photography is a tool with many uses. It can be used to make portraits, report the news, photograph weddings, fashion, landscapes, architecture, and products for sale -- its uses are almost endless. Yet, photography, alone among the arts, has an unique ability that goes far beyond its utilitarian applications. It is the sense of wonder.

As distinguished from other visual media, the art of photography is primarily the art of seeing. A photograph is created at the instant of exposure, and nothing done to it afterward will make it art if it was not well seen to begin with. Throughout the history of the medium, the works that have had power, the works that have lasted, have been straight photographs. Their power and their art are in the photographer's ability to see and to present his vision in a tangible form.

Beauty and mystery. Where is the woman whose shadow is at the left?

What is the significance of the hanging rope? Who is the man

half-seen on the right? What is the source of that brilliant light

illuminating the wall on the right?

The essence of photography is that it is photographic. It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized surface. Light rays bouncing off something that is really there go through a lens and are recorded onto film, a sensor of some kind, or something not yet invented, but whatever it is, it is "writing with light." The unique power of photography is derived from this direct connection to reality.

Dorothea Lange kept a quotation by the English essayist Francis Bacon on her darkroom door: “The contemplation of things as they are, without error or confusion, without substitution or imposture, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention."

As photographer Fred Picker wrote in Shutterbug Magazine, "This Koudelka (print by Czech photographer Joseph Koudelka). . .contains the most amazing combination of things that I know happened, because when he made that photograph there was no electronic imaging. Here are two horses, standing in a certain position, a boy sitting on a bicycle wearing an angel suit with angel wings, here's an old lady scolding him, all in magnificent light and beautifully composed. Today, that picture could be made by some guy sitting in front of a computer. Knowing that would take all the wonder out of it."

The priest grabbed the bridal bouquet

and flourished it while the couple kissed.

In actuality, it isn’t likely “some guy sitting in front of a computer” would make such a picture, because those who alter and/or combine photographs are limited by their imaginations. They can only do what they can conceive. But photography goes beyond human imagination. As novelist Tom Clancy has said, “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense.”

The magic of photography is that life holds so many amazing and wonderful things that are entirely unanticipated, unexpected, even unimagined in the deepest sense; that is -- no one would ever have thought of such a thing happening. And then, suddenly, right out of the fabric of life, there it is. The uniqueness of photography is in that sense of wonder that only photography can provide.

 "I can do a beautiful illustration, but it doesn't have that 'instant of wonder' that a photograph will have." (Art Director Tony Anthony, quoted in Photo District News). 

The Famous Laughing Horse

I rest my case

Photography shows us things that lie beyond our imagination and compel our amazement because they really happened. It revels in the beauty, the mystery, and the strangeness of life. It is the most powerful purely visual medium ever created.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Unless otherwise credited photographs are copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone