A Cure for the Doldrums

Healan Mill, Hall County, Georgia

Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

(Click to enlarge)

 

I've been in the doldrums lately, feeling out of sorts and a little depressed. Of course, the last election was enough to depress anyone who cares about America's future. But it's not just that. The last several years have been a long, hard slog, as we worked to get our house and property ready to sell at the highest possible price, then the intensity of making a quick decision about which fifth-wheel camper to buy, moving out of our house and into the camper, preparing for the estate sale, getting settled in the RV -- lots to do and not much of it fun. And then of course, concern about Louise's upcoming surgeries, the first of which is thankfully behind us.

Last week I was telling Louise about how I felt and she said, "You haven't been out and about with your cameras since forever! No wonder you're feeling down. In a few weeks, after I've recovered enough from my first surgery to be able to be by myself for a while I want you to take your cameras and spend some time on the road. You need to get started on the new edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia anyway."

How lovely to have a wife who understands! 

It is not good for a photographer's psyche to go very long without photographing.

In early 2018 I was in a similar, but not as bad, doldrum. I took a day, just one day, and went across to northeast Georgia, one of my favorite parts of the state. This post features two of the photographs I made that day.

The Healan Mill near Lula, Georgia was built in 1852 by William Head. It was in poor condition when I first photographed it in 2016, but has recently been completely restored by Hall County as the centerpiece of a park. The lovely brook that powered the mill in its working days is actually the headwater of the North Oconee River.

The Ragsdale Mill on Nail's Creek near Homer was built by the Reverend Francis Marion Ragsdale in 1863. The millstones were imported from France and brought into Savannah during the Civil War by blockade runners slipping by the U.S. Navy guarding the port. In its heyday, the mill included a threshing machine and a sawmill.

Ragsdale Mill, Banks County, Georgia

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens

 

I had photographed the Ragsdale Mill for Backroads and Byways of Georgia in 2016, but wanting something a little more dramatic than the photograph I submitted for the book, I fought my way through the undergrowth to the bottom of the cascade -- something I would not have done in warmer weather. If you know why country people look down when they walk, you'll understand.

Both photographs, by the way, are jpegs straight out of the camera, except that I burned in the right side of the Ragsdale Mill picture slightly.

I returned home well after dark but thoroughly refreshed. Looking forward to hitting the road again.

Photographs copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Tags: Dave Jenkins, photography, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, Healan Mill, Lula, Georgia, Hall County, Homer, Ragsdale Mill, the Reverend Francis Marion Ragsdale, Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens, Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

History Repeats -- In Reverse

 

On the inside looking out. The Berlin Wall, March, 1990

Olympus OM, Zuiko lens, Fujichrome 100 film

(Click to enlarge)

Blog Note: Louise came home from the hospital yesterday and is doing very well. Thanks to all who prayed and/or sent kind messages.

Thirty-one years ago this month, Louise and I spent three weeks on assignment to photograph and write about life in the countries of Eastern Europe that were just emerging from 70 years of Communist rule. The taste of freedom was like wine in the air as they threw off the tentacles of a failed system

The people of Eastern Europe had learned the hard way that socialism, far from providing for everyone an equal and abundant share of good things, provided endless scarcity. Standing in line to obtain basic necessities was a daily routine. In West Germany, people drove Volkswagens and Mercedes; in East Germany people who were fortunate drove Trabants, a tiny plastic car with a motorcycle engine, and waited years to be permitted to buy one. 

And because Socialism requires unanimity, dissent was not allowed. Since Socialism was a system invented to give man a way forward without a God (who is not believed to exist), those who believe in God must be ostracized, persecuted, and eliminated if possible. Christian believers found the doors of higher education, good jobs, even decent living quarters closed to them.

It was even against the law in many countries to own a Bible. By 1990, it was estimated that there were no more than 250,000 Bibles in all the Soviet Union. 

And religious persecution was a very real thing. All over Eastern Europe, believers met in secret, in constant fear of the authorities and their secret police. Pavelle Ignatov, a leader of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, was arrested ten times between 1981 and 1990, lost his job nine times, was continually harassed by the government, and had his life threatened. Countless other believers lost their jobs and were denied privileges such as access to schools and better housing. Many were beaten and imprisoned. Yet, the church in Bulgaria grew 600 percent during this time.

But Communism? It never worked. Any time, anywhere. It never brought anything but death. By conservative estimate, more than 100 million people lost their lives in the 20th century as a direct result of attempts to establish Marxism in its various forms -- socialism, fascism, Nazism, and communism. In the United States it's often called progressivism. 

But it could never happen here. Not in the United States, the bastion of freedom. Right? Right!

After the fall of the Soviet Union, many people believed Communism was dead. But I said, "Communism is not dead. The Soviet Union is dead, but Communism is alive and well and living in the faculty lounges and classrooms of America's colleges and universities." History has proven me right. We're now seeing the poisoned fruit of Marxist teachers, as many who learned at their feet have become leaders in business, politics, and other fields and are advancing the poisonous tenets of Karl Marx and seeking to silence all opposition. 

But it couldn't possibly happen here, could it? Look again. It is happening here. The media are advancing it. Politicians are advancing it. The "woke" generation is advancing it under such terms as "equality" and "social justice."

 As Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

We are that generation. How could the people of the greatest, most free nation in the history of the world run like lemmings over the precipice of Marxism?

How? Because those teachers of Marxism in our colleges and universities, and now in our secondary schools stole our history from us. And we slept while they did it.

Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2021

I post three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone 

Tags: Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Communism, Socialism, Karl Marx, Marxism, social justice, woke, Reagan, Olympus OM, Zuiko, Fujichrome

Photographing Interiors

The Clubhouse at The Manor Apartments, Atlanta

Pentax 6x7, 45mm Takumar lens, Fujichrome film

(Click to enlarge)

Blog Note #1: Thanks to all who expressed concern and prayers for Louise. The surgery to fuse vertebrae in her neck and remove bone cysts that were pressing on the nerve root went well. She is currently sitting in her hospital bed making phone calls and writing text messages. She will come home Thursday if all continues to go well.

Blog Note #2: I'm sorry to be late with this post. The campground wifi is unreliable, so I've mostly been connecting with the internet via Bluetooth with my cell phone hot spot. That seems to have quit working. We switched from Consumer Cellular to T-Mobile because they offered unlimited data. It worked well at first, but is now hardly working at all. I have to find another way to connect with the internet.

 As a small-market professional photographer for most of my working life I had to deal with a wide variety of genres and be reasonably proficient in all, or at least most, of them. Advertising photography, product photos, location photography for annual reports and corporate brochures, business and personal portraits, weddings, architecture and interiors, editorial photography for magazines, photographing and writing audio-visual productions -- one never knew what the next project might be. And I enjoyed it all. Just about everything was an interesting challenge. One of the things I especially enjoyed about commercial photography is that it's an endless sequence of interesting problems to solve, but if I failed to solve them the world would not end.

Of course, if I had failed very often to solve them my career might well have come to an early end..

But I mostly solved them, and enjoyed the process.

One area in which this is especially true is photography of interiors, which is all about staging and lighting. Usually the interior designer or an art director handled the staging, but the lighting problems were mine and mine alone to solve.

However, in the photo of the clubhouse at The Manor Apartments in Atlanta, I was on my own. No interior designer, no art director. But staging was easy -- I just moved a few chairs and pillows around and turned on some lights. Lighting was fairly simple also. I always carry a compact case with three portable studio strobe lights. I set one at camera position and the other two on the right side, about ten feet apart. They are hidden by the leaves of the tall plant on the right edge of the photograph.

That by the way is an example of simple problem-solving. If you want to hide something from the camera, use some sort of found object that looks as if it would naturally be where it is -- in this case, the plant, which I moved into that position. It was originally much farther to the right and out of the picture.

I like this photo and have used it in my architecture portfolio, but it has one glaring fault which you would probably not notice if I didn't point it out -- there's no fire in the fireplace! If I had balled up a few sheets of newspaper and lit them in the fireplace it would have made the room come alive in a way that it doesn't now.

That probably wouldn't have happened if a designer had done the staging, but apparently that was something the building contractor didn't budget for.

Probably the greatest of all architectural and interior photographers, and one of my heroes, is Julius Shulman, who retired in his mid-80s, got bored after awhile, and went back to work until his death at age 99, going around with a walker and an assistant to carry his camera.

Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2021

I post three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone 

Tags: photography, architecture, Pentax, Takumar, Fujichrome, film, Atlanta, Manor Apartments, studio strobe lighting

A Quick Update

Next!

One of our cows awaits her turn at the outhouse.

 

I thought you might enjoy the above photo, although it has nothing to do with today's post, which is an update about our life since the sale of our home and property. Since January 11th we have been living in a fifth wheel trailer in a campground just across the state line from Chattanooga. Coming from a 2,800-square-foot house to 350 square feet of well-laid-out trailer space, we are amazingly comfortable now that we have found places for most of the stuff we intend to keep with us and have all the boxes off the floor. Anything we want to keep long-term will go in our storage unit. 

So why would we choose to downsize so radically? Three reasons, really. 

One, the obvious one; we love to travel and hope to do a great deal more of it in whatever time we have left on this earth. 

Second, we enjoy the relative freedom after years of maintaining a large home and property.

Third, and this is a very important reason -- we don't know where we would want to settle if we ever decided to live in a house or apartment again. This time in an RV will give us an opportunity to look around a bit and work out the pros and cons of various places to settle -- or not to settle at all. 

As some of you know, Louise has had serious problems with her back for many years. This Tuesday she will be having surgery to fuse vertebrae in her neck and remove bone cysts that are bearing on the nerve root. After about six weeks recuperation she will have surgery to fuse two vertebrae in her lower back. So we will be here in the travel park until sometime in May. 

After that, if all goes well, we will go to Florida for a few weeks and then return to Georgia to work on the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia, which I have to complete by the end of the year. We are eager to be on the road again.

Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2021

I post three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone 

Tags: Dave Jenkins, photography, fifth-wheel trailers, RVs, campgrounds, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, travel, RV travel