The Canals of Bruges, Belgium

A canal in Bruges

Olympus OM camera, Zuiko lens, Fujichrome film

(Click to enlarge)

1990 was a banner year for Louise and me. In March, we went to six countries in Eastern Europe to document the changes that resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall. In June, our son Don was married to Kimberly Keith, with our brand new barn the setting for their rehearsal dinner.

In November, the Church of God sent us to Western Europe, to document mission activities. We went to England, Belgium, France, and Spain, and also to Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast. From there, we spent a day in Morocco with an unusual missionary with an unusual mission to Muslims.

It was a great trip, wrapped up with a great English breakfast at Harrod's in London. However, I think the place we enjoyed most may have been the beautiful city of Bruges, Belgium, with its network of canals. Naturally, we took a ride in a barge. Later, Louise bought some of the lace for which the city is famous.

Canal Bargeman, Bruges

Everything was great, that is, until we were leaving England. A constant problem for traveling photographers in the film era was x-ray machines at airports. Since x-rays could degrade or destroy the latent images on film, knowledgeable photographers asked that their film be examined by hand rather than then x-rayed. I had some close calls, but managed to travel to 28 countries without having my film x-rayed. Until this time. Approaching the gate at London's Heathrow Airport for our return flight to the U.S., I asked the attendant for a hand examination of my film -- the film that held the entire record of our trip. "Sorry," he said. "It has to be x-rayed." I pled with him, but to no avail. "If we don't x-ray your film, you don't fly."

The film was x-rayed.

The good news is that there appeared to be no damage. All the film was usable. Today's digital photographers have no idea how easy they have it.

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Tags: Bruges, Belgium, canals, Berlin Wall, Church of God, England, Belgium, France, Spain, Ceuta, Morocco, photography, film, Fujichrome, London, Harrod's, Heathrow Airport, London, Olympus OM camera, Zuiko lens

Lost in the Woods

Not officially a "lost barn," but pretty darned hard to find.

Canon EOS A2 with Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome film

(Click to enlarge)

 A lot can happen in 35 or 40 years. Trees can grow up, barns can fall down, highways can be moved. Whole populations of people can move into or out of an area. In central and southeast Georgia many roads are lined with abandoned houses surrounded with trees and brush.

Technically, this little barn on U.S. Highways 25/341 near Everett City, Georgia, about 14 miles north of Brunswick, was not lost. I had one of the old file cards used by the Rock City sign painters in the 1950s and '60s, with a photo, the highway, and the distance from Brunswick. It's the bottom middle card shown below.

 

 The file cards used by the Rock City sign painters.

 

As I said, it was not lost -- except that it was, because I couldn't find it. I spent at least three hours driving up and down U.S. 341. To make things worse, a road crew was working on the highway and I had to wait for the flagman to let me through each time.

I showed the picture to several people, including two guys changing a truck tire at Manning Bros. General Merchandise. They told me the barn was "at the curve."

  

Manning Bros. General Mdse., Everett City, Georgia

 

Curve? What curve? The road was straight. No curves. Finally, someone told me exactly where to look, which, as it happened, was a dirt road about 50 yards from where the roadwork was being done. There appeared to be nothing there except a dense thicket, but when I literally parted the foliage with my hands, there it was. Lost in the woods for many years.

I later learned that the old alignment of U.S. 341 had run up to the front of the barn and then curved left. The barn had indeed been "on the curve," but that was probably 30 years ago.

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Tags: Central Georgia, Southeast Georgia, Everett City, Georgia, Brunswick, Rock City, sign painters, Canon EOS A2, Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome film

Lookout Mountain

Clearing storm over Lookout Mountain

Canon EOS A2, 80-200 f2.8L "Magic Drainpipe" lens, Fujichrome 100 film

(Click to enlarge)

 

Lookout is not a spectacular mountain. Folks out west would probably laugh at the notion of calling it a mountain at all. In fact, were it not the home of Rock City Gardens (“See Rock City atop Lookout Mountain”), probably only the local people would know about it. 

 A southern extension of the Cumberland Plateau, Lookout Mountain is less than 2400 feet at its highest point. If you were to look at it from above you would see that it looks like an alligator with its jaws open. The tip of its nose is in Tennessee and its body sprawls southwest for 80 miles across the northwest corner of Georgia and into Alabama, where its tail tapers out at Noccalula Falls in Gadsden. Its top is a rolling tableland maybe ten or twelve miles wide in some places, but mostly narrower than that. 

As I said, Lookout is not spectacular. But I grew up in Indiana, where we have no mountains at all, so when I came south to college it seemed like a sure enough real mountain to me. 

Lookout was the first mountain I got to know. I drove its backroads (mostly dirt in those days), roamed its canyons, waterfalls, and swimming holes, kissed girls there, and even wrote poems about it (about the mountain, that is, not about kissing the girls). When I moved away, Lookout kept drawing me back. For 33 years I lived in its shadow, in a valley between Lookout and its extension, Pigeon Mountain (the “lower jaw of the alligator” in the aerial view). From the back windows of my house I could watch the sun rise over Pigeon, and from the front windows I could see it set over Lookout. 

I no longer live in that valley called McLemore Cove, but my lifelong love affair with Lookout Mountain continues. In all seasons and in all its moods, Lookout has symbolized for me God’s beauty, peace, strength, and eternity. 

 (Adapted from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.)

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Tags: Photography, Lookout Mountain, Rock City Gardens, Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Noccalula Falls, Gadsden, Pigeon Mountain, McLemore Cove, Canon EOS A2, Fujichrome film, Canon 80-200 f2.8L lens, Magic Drainpipe

A Lost Barn and a Lost Friend

 Can you see the tops of the letters "c," "h," and "a?"

Canon EOS A2, 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome 100 film

(Click to enlarge}

 

1995 was a busy and enjoyable year for Dave Jenkins Photography, with most of the time not booked for studio sessions taken up with travel and photography for a book about Rock City barns.

In October, 1994, a few days after I agreed to do the project, Rock City sent me a box containing hundreds of old office file cards from the 1960s; Rock City's only record of most barn locations. They had literally been gathering dust in a closet in the advertising department for 30 years. On each card was the name of the property owner at that time, the highway, and the distance from the nearest town. Most had a small photo attached, apparently taken about 1960. Rock City had had no contact with most of these barns since the barn painting operation was greatly curtailed in the late '60s, so the only way to find out if they were still standing was to go and see.

The old-style office file cards used by the Rock City sign painters.

Most barn photography trips were one to three days in duration, but since there were barn locations in 15 states, some trips were longer. In fact, the trail of barns led my old Chevy Blazer nearly 35,000 miles to more than 500 sites over 18 months.

In July of that year, John Huckaba, who was a retired dentist, a member of my Sunday School class, and my best friend at the time, asked if he could go with me on one of my photo-trips. Accordingly, I planned a one-day itinerary to locate and photograph a number of barns on and around East Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau. 

John had survived bladder cancer in the late '80s and was fit and active, but he said I wore him out with my relentless pursuit of barn sites, continuing until there was no longer enough light for photography. He also said that I appeared to have a sixth sense about barn locations. 

At one site we found a welding and machine shop where we had hoped to find a barn. The photo of the barn on my file card showed a house in the background with an oddly shaped upstairs window, and indeed, the farmhouse next to the machine shop had exactly that style of window. John marveled when I showed him the old photo. 

I walked around a bit and found where some of the tin from the old barn roof had been repurposed as siding for the shop. It had been painted over, but if you look carefully, you can see parts of three letters. I think they are the "C," "H," and "A" from "Near Chattanooga, TN," a phrase which appears on many Rock City barns. 

It was a very enjoyable day with John, but by the time we got home he was tired and experiencing some discomfort. A few days later we learned the cancer had returned. 

John died six months later. I still miss him. 

Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2021

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 Tags: Rock City, Rock City barns. East Tennessee, Cumberland Plateau, Canon EOS A2 film camera, film, Fujichrome film, cancer, Chattanooga, Chevy Blazer, Rock City sign painters, Rock City Barns book