Hidden Treasure on Old U.S. Highway 68

I can't find the original photo I made of the Meramac Caverns

barn. That one was from directly in front of the barn, and I

didn't see the Rock City sign until later.

 After nearly a month's layoff to take care of my commercial photography business, September 25, 1995 found me back in northeastern Kentucky looking for Rock City barns along U.S. Highways 60 and 68. Using the old file cards once used by the barn painters as my guide, I was having my usual middling success. In general, almost half the sites I visited for this project still had barns on them in varying states of repair, and many barns were, of course, long gone. 

I found one still-standing barn on U.S. 68 in Nicholas County, seven miles south of Blue Lick Springs. The sign had been painted over, but the owner was there in his pickup truck and confirmed that it was indeed a Rock City barn (page 145-D in the Rock City Barns book). Farther up the road I stopped to ask a local resident about another barn on my list. He didn't know of it, but said "There's a little barn about a mile up Old 68 that has some kinda sign on it." 

Much of U.S. 68 through Nicholas County has been rerouted and/or rebuilt, so although I never found the barn I was looking for, I was glad to learn about the old highway alignment and quickly went exploring. It was uphill most of the way, and when I got to the top I found a small barn with a Meramec Caverns sign on the end facing me. 

Meramec Caverns, an attraction in the Ozark Mountains near Stanton, Missouri, has to this day an extensive network of barns painted with their sign over much of the midwest and at least as far south as Manchester, Tennessee. I photographed them whenever I found them as I was working on the Rock City Barns book, and after publication of that book, approached the Meramec Caverns people about doing a book for them. Unfortunately, they weren't interested, but I have a nice collection of photos if they should ever change their minds.

Anyway, I photographed the Meramec sign and went on down the other side of the hill to see what might be there. The road was steep, narrow, and winding, and I couldn't help wondering what it had been like to meet a semi coming down that hill in the old days! 

At the bottom of the hill was the Licking River and a rickety old metal bridge (I thought again of the semis!), and across the bridge an old village consisting of several abandoned, two-story store buildings. To my right a long, new bridge carried new 68 high across the river valley and the little village from the past. 

I haven't been back to that place since the early 2000s, but from what I can see on Google Earth the bridge is still there but the old buildings are gone, replaced by a home or two and a few barns. 

The lost Rock City barn on U.S. Highway 68.

Both photos Canon EOS A2. 28-105 EF lens, Fujichrome 100 film.

 

But going back up the hill, I found my hidden treasure: A long-lost "See Rock City" sign on the back of the barn! (Page 83 in the Rock City Barns book.) 

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

McCormick's Creek State Park, Indiana

Two boys playing on the waterfall. 

All photos FujiX-H1, Fujinon XC 16-50 f3.5-5.6 and 50-230 f4.8-6.3 lenses.

 

The weather, in keeping with the sad passing of my sister, provided rain and cloudy skies, followed by more rain and more cloudy skies for nine of the ten days of our trip to Indiana. She could handle only brief visits each day, so rather than sit around at her house or in our travel trailer, I was hoping for an opportunity to go to Parke County to photographed some of their 31 covered bridges, the most of any county in the U.S., and truly, more covered bridges than most entire states can boast.

We finally got one clear day and headed north on two-lane, heavily traveled U.S. Highway 231. The distance was about 95 miles, however, we were late getting away, and by the time we reached Spencer I realized we would be too late to locate the bridges and have good light to photograph them.

Fortunately, my photographic motto is "Indecisiveness is the key to flexibility,” so I quickly switched plans and made for McCormick's Creek State Park, just two miles north of Spencer.

Even though I grew up in Indiana less than a hundred miles away and McCormick's Creek is Indiana's oldest state park, dedicated in 1916, I don't recall having ever been there -- although I might possibly have been there at a 4-H camp when I was in high school. That was a long time ago and I just don't remember.

Although I well remember a girl I met at that camp, wherever it was.

John McCormick, a captain in the Revolutionary War, homesteaded nearly a hundred acres along the canyon by the waterfalls in 1816. In subsequent years settlers ran cattle and farmed small patches of ground, most of which has now gone back to forest. 

The Stone Arch Bridge

 The park is an interesting place. The waterfall is tiny by the standards of our southern mountains, as is the canyon, but both are beautiful. Unfortunately, we were too late for good fall color, as many of the leaves had already dropped, but I made the best of what I could find. 

McCormick's Creek, above the canyon.

Of special interest were the remnants of the Peden farm. The land was inherited by Nancy, the daughter of John McCormick, who with her husband Jesse built a cabin, a barn, and a springhouse which is still in good condition, although the cabin is long gone. The barn burned in 1857 and their son Tom built an enormous barn on massive limestone pillars which still stand as mute testimony to the skill of the builders. 

Massive limestone pillars of the Peden barn.

Whoever created the map in the brochure handed out at the park entrance evidently never visited the place.

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

Photography and Politics -- Revisited

Blog Note: It's election night and I don't feel like watching the returns. I'm going to re-post something pertinent and then go to bed. That's what I did in 2016, and when I woke up the next morning everything had worked out just right.

Russian Girl in the Arpatskaya, Moscow

Olympus OM2n, 100-300mm f4 Tokina lens, Fujichrome 100 RDP

Edward Steichen, one of the all-time great photographers, said near the end of his long and distinguished career, "The function of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. That is no mean function."

Documentary photography is about human beings and their doings. One cannot delve very far at all into the doings of human beings without running up against politics and religion, because they are two of the principal motivators of human action. It is disingenuous to think that photography can be divorced from these two great motivators.  

From earliest times, most of the great photographers have been people who have had a point of view and have used photography to express it. In fact, it would be safe to say that is often the reason they are regarded as great photographers. Their points of view have invariably been molded by politics and/or religion (or the lack of it, which is a religion of its own).

We must recognize and respect the power of political ideas in the work of other photographers, even if we do not ourselves espouse those beliefs. I might find that another photographer and I are political opposites. But if he has a definite point of view and uses his photography to present it effectively, I must respect that and attempt to do as well in advancing my own point of view.

We may proclaim ourselves apolitical and may deeply wish to be so, yet, we cannot escape politics. It is integral to all human endeavor, photography not excepted. Instead of being contentious and flaming every one whose beliefs vary a hair's breadth from our own, let's use our cameras to express our own points of view about what's right and what's wrong, and what is valuable. Democracy thrives in the free marketplace of ideas, and truth, even though it may be willfully held down, will ultimately prevail. 

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? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Serendipity's First Kiss

The Verdant Louise

 I've written quite a lot about serendipity (see here and here and here) but it was years after she first kissed me before I realized she was responsible for some of my best photographs. 

This was her first kiss -- and my first definitive portrait, although I didn't know it at the time. It was 1969 and I had recently acquired my first really good camera, a Nikon F, along with a pair of Tamron lenses: a 35mm and a 135mm, both f2.8. In my first flush of photographic enthusiasm I was pointing my camera and clicking the shutter at anything and everything. 

I also liked to experiment with different types of film: black & white, color negative, and color slide. But I had only the one camera body, and sometimes would want to change the film type before finishing the roll in the camera. Rather than losing whatever number of frames were left on the roll, I would check the exposure counter, rewind the film, leaving the leader out, and write the number of exposures on the leader. When I put the film back in the camera I would cover the lens, click off the indicated number of exposures, plus one, and go on shooting. 

This worked well most of the time, but sometimes I would fail to count accurately and would get an accidental double exposure. Mostly, those would be a waste of film; occasionally one would be mildly interesting. This one alone was a kiss from serendipity. 

Why do I call this a definitive portrait? As I wrote here, a definitive portrait is one that shows not only what the subject looks like, but also reveals some insight into his or her character. This portrait of Louise not only shows the beauty of my wife in her mid-20s, but also, through the magic of a serendipitous double exposure that combines her portrait with growing plants, reveals two things: one is her character as a nurturer, demonstrated especially in her career as a registered nurse and nurse practitioner 

The second is her deep love of growing things. Some years ago when we lived in a subdivision, Louise had a small garden plot, maybe 15x20 feet, in our back yard. My dad always referred to it as Louise's mini-farm, because it was so productive. She continues her verdant ways to this day, supervising the landscaping around our home and tending a sizable flower garden. 

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? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone