Cutting Firewood

Cutting up a great big tree with a little bitty chainsaw.

 

In November, 1985, we bought 30 acres of land in North Georgia's McLemore Cove. (Read about how we found it here.)

We put a camper on the property and began spending weekends there. Donny was a teen-ager then, and one Friday evening in the spring of 1986 several of his friends came out to camp overnight. We built a fire in front of the old house, near an enormous maple tree that must have been three feet thick at the base. About eight or ten feet above the ground it divided into two trunks, each at least two feet in diameter.

A little after dark we were all sitting around the campfire when a sudden hard wind came from the west, blowing embers from the fire toward the old house. As we all jumped up to put out the fire, one of those enormous limbs split off the maple tree and fell toward us. We all ran in different directions, and miraculously, no one was hurt.

Except me.

The tree knocked me down and fell all around me. It's hard to believe I wasn't killed, but all I got were some broken ribs.

We were still living in a subdivision near Chattanooga at the time, in a tri-level house. At the lowest level, in the den, we had a wood-burning stove that kept the whole house warm. That fall, I cut up that trunk with a 16-inch Remington chainsaw, split it with a mallet and wedges, hauled it home a load at a time in our compact Ford Courier pickup, and burned that sucker! 

That was the first tree that tried to kill me. Read about the other one here and here. (I got my revenge on that one, too.)

For fans of film photography: you're seeing something unusual, in fact, something you may never have seen before -- a Kodachrome 64 transparency in 120 size. Kodak made it in the 1980s and possibly into the '90s in an effort to stem the tide of photographers switching to Fujichrome. The quality was unparalleled, but it never sold well and ultimately Fuji prevailed. Kodak stopped making the 120 size and eventually stopped making Kodachrome altogether. A sad day, but by that time 'most everyone had switched to digital imaging, so it mattered to only a very few. I shot a few rolls in my Pentax 6x7 and loved the film, but stuck to Fujichrome because I could process it myself.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be published on December 6th.

Short's Mill in a Frame

My favorite view of Short's Mill

In my previous post I showed a square photograph of the old Short's Mill near Clarkesville, Georgia. While I like the strength and directness of that view, I wrote that it wasn't my favorite. The one above is my favorite.

Both photos were made on October 11, 2010. A lifelong friend had asked me to photograph his son's wedding at a venue in Dahlonega. After the ceremony and reception, he put me up in a hotel there and I got the best night's sleep I had had in a long time. I wish I knew what kind of mattress it was!

Anyway, after sleeping until about 10 a.m. and eating what is known as a hearty breakfast, I went exploring. Short's Mill is located on Old Georgia Highway 197, about four miles south of Clarkesville. I photographed it on film with my Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex, and also with my digital Canon 5D first version, often called the Classic. This picture was made with the Canon.

What I like about this view is the way the leaves and the top of the waterfall form a frame, drawing your eye to the mill. I wrote more extensively about framing here and here if you would like to read more about it.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

My most recent book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is a 304-page soft-cover with more than 200 color photographs. Published by Countryman Press, it is priced at $22.95. Signed and inscribed copies are available directly from me at (423) 240-2324 or djphoto@vol.com.

Another View of Short's Mill

                                                  Short's Mill near Clarkesville, Georgia

I don't imagine anyone could read my blog for very long without catching on that I'm a lover of old things in general, and old barns and old mills in particular. In fact, I define myself as a photographer as a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.

Short's Mill, a few miles south of Clarkesville, was probably built around 1880, however some sources say it could have been built as early as the mid-1800s. Although the mill ceased operation in 1970, it appears to be mostly intact more than 50 years later. The sluiceway which carried water to the top of the overshot wheel is long gone, but the wheel itself is still in place and looks as if it could once again begin turning the millstones with a few moments notice.

This photo of the mill is not the one I usually show, but I like it very much. Made with my Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex, the square composition seems to me to be very strong. The film was Fuji's 100-speed Astia transparency film, and I think its soft colors suit this scene very well.

The film was scanned on my old Epson Perfection 4990 scanner, which still does a very good job.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

My most recent book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is a 304-page soft-cover with more than 200 color photographs. Published by Countryman Press, it is priced at $22.95. Signed and inscribed copies are available directly from me at (423) 240-2324 or djphoto@vol.com.

 

 

Hiding in the Shadows

Can you spot the horse? Click on the photo to enlarge.

There's a horse hidden in this picture. Can you find him?

The photograph was made on U.S. Highway 27 just south of Winfield, Tennessee, near the Kentucky line, on October 25, 1994. I was on my first trip to find and photograph Rock City barns.

My camera was the ahead-of-its-time Canon EOS 10-S, and the lens was the Canon EF 70-210mm f4; an okay lens, but not the sharpest in Canon's arsenal. When I had the opportunity I upgraded to the Canon 80-200 f2.8L, a lens so legendary for sharpness that it was nicknamed "the Magic Drainpipe.

As usual, the film was Fuji's RDP100 Professional slide film, my all-time favorite, although Kodachrome 64 would have been a close second. I slightly preferred the colors of the Fuji, but it's big advantage was that I could (and did) process it myself, while the Kodachrome had to be sent to a Kodak lab for processing.

This is by no means the sharpest picture I've ever made, but it was sharp enough to make a 20x30-inch print that hung over our fireplace for many years.

Well, enough tech-talk. Have you found the horse? Here he is.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

My most recent book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is a 304-page soft-cover with more than 200 color photographs. Published by Countryman Press, it is priced at $22.95. Signed and inscribed copies are available directly from me at (423) 240-2324 or djphoto@vol.com.