The Kindness of Friends

65 Miles to Rock City

US Hwy. 127, Bledsoe County, TN

Olympus OM2n, 60-200 f4 Zuiko lens, Fujichrome 100

 

In late summer of 1993, Louise and I were going through an especially difficult time. The contractor who was building our home had just gone bankrupt, holding 83 percent of our money and leaving us with a house that was not 83 percent finished.

Our friends John and Ann Huckaba took note of our discouragement and invited us to come with them on a Sunday afternoon outing to Crossville, Tennessee to see a performance at the Cumberland County Playhouse.

Afterward, we ate at the excellent restaurant at Cumberland Mountain State Park, then walked down to the lake. Naturally, I had a camera with me, so I made a few photos of canoes pulled up on the dock.

Driving home on U.S. Highway 127 in rich evening light, we passed a barn with one of  Rock City's ubiquitous signs. I asked John if he would stop so I could make a picture. He did, and I did, resulting in one of my favorite Rock City barn photographs.

This was more than a year before I actually began commissioned work on Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, but I was gathering photographs of the barns as I found them. Having a number of good barn photos to show Bill Chapin, the president of See Rock City, Inc., was what actually sealed the deal on the book project. 

Canoes at Cumberland Mountain State Park

Cumberland County, TN

Olympus OM2n, 60-200 f4 Zuiko lens, Fujichrome 100

 

It was a refreshing and encouraging day for Louise and me We will always be grateful for the kindness of friends. And because I had a camera with me and my eyes were open to noticing things, I have two of my favorite pictures to help us remember the day.

Photographs 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

 

Noticing Visual/Verbal Puns

Stop Ahead!

Apison Pike at TN Hwy.321, Hamilton County, TN

This was in the early 1970s, so I was probably using

a Rolleicord twin-lens reflex, Agfa B&W film

 

I love visual/verbal puns and seem to find them everywhere. Admittedly, my humor is a bit offbeat and I have a finely-tuned sense of irony, but I do seem to notice things that other people pass by without a second look (or even a first look, for that matter). But that's okay. One of the primary functions of a photographer is to show people the things in this big, wide, wonderful world that they would otherwise miss.

What catches my eye? As I wrote in the introduction to my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait, ". . .the old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky, and the ordinary."

Some puns are so obvious they almost hit you in the face. The barn and stop sign in the photo at the top of this post were on a well-traveled intersection just outside Chattanooga, yet I wonder how many people passed them without a glance or a thought.

Boynton Beauty Salon

Old GA Hwy 2, Catoosa County GA

Nikkormat FTN, 50mm Nikkor lens, Kodachrome 25

 

Other puns are a bit more subtle, like the second picture, but still easy to get if you look at it for a second or two.

Still others seem, to me at least, to be very subtle, like the photograph at the bottom of the post. What do you think?

Holy Ghost Fire on Burnt Mountain

GA Hwy. 136, Pickens County, GA

Canon 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome 100

 

So what's the point of this series of posts? Simply this: Open your eyes. There's a world full of cool things to see and show.

Photographs 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

Noticing Visual Puns

Bottoms Up!

Berry College Campus, Rome, Georgia

Olympus OM, 85mm f2 Zuiko, Kodachrome 64

 

As I wrote in my previous post, I adore visual puns and am always on the lookout for them.

I have a quirky sense of humor and can often find something funny in situations where others might not.

Basically, there are two kinds of visual puns -- those with words and those without words. Visual puns without words are usually more subtle and are often more difficult for many people to discern. Today's selection, as you can see, is wordless puns. Visual/verbal puns coming soon. 

Remember, this all a matter of simply noticing things.

Flower Bed

Along an old highway in southwest Georgia.

Canon 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome 100

 

Above the Crowd

Along an old highway in southwest Georgia.

Canon 5D Classic, 24-85 f3.5-4.5 EF lens, Fujichrome 100

 

Photographs are from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait. Photographs 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

 

Noticing Quiet Beauty

Red Glider

US Highway 129, south central Georgia, May 2011

Canon EOS 5D Classic, 70-200mm f4L Canon lens

from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait

 

The world is full of beauty. Often, though, it's quiet beauty -- beauty that doesn't shout for your attention. Some people are oblivious to it; many others see it, enjoy it for a moment, then pass on. A few notice it and record it in photographs to be enjoyed by themselves and others. 

That's what I do. My name for my portfolio of "art" photographs is "Images of Tranquility." My photographs are mostly quiet, and I hope, quietly beautiful. I don't do spectacular. I just see what I see and try to record and show it.

What catches my eye? The old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky. I am a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life. And I do dearly love visual puns.

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