Ramblin' 'round Georgia

South Georgia dirt road.

My favorite place to ramble was northeast, Georgia. But in the process of working on books and just general ramblin' 'round, I've managed to cover much of the state at one time or another and have seen many things that were of interest to me. I hope you will find them interesting also. These are more of what I call my "second tier" pictures.

As I've written before, the things that catch my eye are the old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky. I am a visual historian of mid-twentieth-century America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.

City Hall, Hahira, Georgia.

 

Green doors on abandoned store, west central Georgia.

 

 Thunderbird for sale, southwest Georgia.

 

 Chattooga Trading Post, Chattooga County, Georgia.

Log shed and wagon, southeast Georgia.

 

Outhouse, south Georgia.

 

Georgian cottage, Barnesville, Georgia.

 

 

Yellow house, Sunbury, Georgia.

 

About the photos: These pictures were mostly made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic. One or two were made with a Canon EOS 20D, and one, the Chattooga Trading Post, was made on Fujichrome 100 film with a Canon EOS A2.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    film photography    digital photography   Georgia    Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Canon EOS A2 camera   McLemore Cove    Fujichrome film

Why I Blog

 Cloudfall over brow of Lookout Mountain, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

 

There are several reasons I blog. I like to share my life and experiences, I like to write about the art of photography, the tools we use, and about techniques that will help us make better pictures.  

Another reason I blog is to give my pictures life. You see, I feel that in order to have life, a picture needs to be seen. Not all my photographs have been published, so there are many that are not quite the right fit for publication, or they may be good, but not as good as another for a particular use.

But I love my pictures and enjoy them. That doesn't mean I think they are great, or that I'm a great photographer, but I think they deserve to be seen, to have life. So I publish them in books and magazines, and I blog. 

This is a group of what I would call second-tier photographs. They aren't my best ones, but they also deserve to be seen and enjoyed. I hope you will enjoy them too.

 

VW Karmann Ghia, west central Georgia.

 

Karma Newland, my all-time best assistant.

 

Confederate reenactor, Point Park, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

 

Man with hat, Dayton, Tennessee.

 

Little girl at playground, Greenville, South Carolina.

 

Red chair, Chickamauga Battlefield, Walker County, Georgia.

 

Lulu and Dancer, Deer Run Farm, McLemore Cove, Georgia.

Peekaboo! Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

 Photos: The photos were made at many different times in many different places with many different cameras. However, all were photographed on film except for the Karmann Ghia.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     Georgia    Tennessee     South Carolina    North Carolina   McLemore Cove    Volkswagen Karmann Ghia     Lookout Mountain

24 Hours in Mayalan (Repost)

The Mighty Cessna at the Mayalan Airstrip

 

(Reposted from March, 2020)

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s I had a relationship with the World Missions Department of the Church of God that took me to 26 countries on four continents and resulted in the production of more than 60 audio-visual programs to promote and raise funds for the Church's mission efforts.

In March, 1989, I met American missionary Frank Tyson and Guatemalan doctor Jaime Gomez at a small airfield high in the mountains of northern Guatemala. We loaded ourselves and some boxes of supplies into a small, single-engine Cessna, with Frank and Jaime sitting on the boxes because the back seats had been removed for hauling cargo and set off over some 8,000-feet-plus mountains to the highland village of Mayalan.

Our pilot, a Guatemalan "air cowboy," a spiritual kinsman of Alaskan bush pilots, was not one to waste fuel on higher altitudes. He skimmed the mountain tops so closely that I could have picked blossoms from the jacaranda trees. Nonetheless, he deposited us safely on the soccer field-cum-landing strip at Mayalan, fortunately catching it between games.

A warm welcome from the Mayalan villagers

includes water for washing hands.

 

After receiving a warm welcome from the villagers, we each went to our work. 
Jaime set up a clinic in the village church and Frank met with the village elders. I wandered around with my camera observing village life.

 

Dr. Jaime Gomez gives a mother diet

supplements for her undernourished infant.

 

Weaving in the traditional way.

 

Butchering a wild pig.

 

When evening came, there was a service in the church with Frank preaching. I put a Vivitar 283 flash on my camera and another on a lightweight stand and photographed the village believers at worship.   

 

A worship service at the Mayalan Church.

 

 After the service, it was bedtime. The church's "pews" were split logs mounted on short pegs. My bed was two of them placed side-by-side. Frank and Jaime had sleeping bags, but I, having not been forewarned, put on the warmest clothes I had, covered myself with my bathrobe, and settled in for the coldest, most miserable night of my life. (It gets very cold at night in the Guatemalan highlands!)

 

Sunrise at Mayalan

 

There was a silver lining, though. As the pre-dawn light began to filter into the church, I had absolutely no incentive to stay in bed! I was up and out with my camera as the sun rose, documenting the village as it came to life. I photographed the women cooking breakfast, the men going off to their fields, and the children beginning their school day.

 

The women at Mayalan cook breakfast on an open firepit.

 

 

 

The school at Mayalan provides nourishment for bright

young minds formerly doomed to illiteracy.

 

Kids and puppies are the same everywhere.

 

All too soon the air cowboy returned in his Cessna and it was time to leave. We had been in Mayalan for 24 hours and I had everything I needed to make one of my all-time favorite audio-visual programs.

But there was one final surprise: as we neared the end of the airstrip the engine faltered and we appeared about to drop into the very deep ravine at the end of the strip. But the little Cessna regained power and we were off. I hardly even noticed -- I was busy snapping aerial photos of the village.

Photographers are like that.

 

You can view the Mayalan A-V program here.

(Photographs made with Olympus OM cameras and lenses and a Vivitar 75-205 f3.8 zoom. Fujichrome 100D film.) 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     Travel    Guatemala      Fujichrome 100 film    Mayalan     Olympus OM camera     Vivitar lens    Missions

My Red Fetish

Red Volkswagen, Miami, 1969/70

I've loved the color red all my adult life. My favorite ties are red, my socks are red, black, and grey argyles, and, being a thorough-going obsessive-compulsive, I even have a red cover on my iPad and red paper clips on my desk. As I write this, I'm wearing a red T-shirt.

Naturally, all of this bleeds over into my photography. I gravitate to subjects with lots of red.

Two red chairs on farmhouse porch near Valdosta, Georgia, 2006.

Psychologists say people who love red are passionate and hot-headed. I don't think that's true of me. I consider myself easy-going, even-tempered, and relaxed. People who are hard-driving give me a pain. 

Red Chaise lounge, U.S. Highway 129, Irwin County, Georgia, 2010.

 This is more in line with my temperament. This red chaise lounge by a pond in south Georgia was so inviting I was tempted to park my car and sit awhile.

Civil War bugle. Chickamauga Battlefield, Walker County, Georgia, 1975.

 I apologize for using this photo in two posts in a row, but it's just about my favorite red photo and I couldn't leave it out. The color saturation of that Kodachrome film is amazing.

Starr's Mill, Georgia Highway 85 near Senoia, Fayette County, 2011.

And last, but by no means least, Starr's Mill. One the two most beautiful old mills in Georgia and one of my favorite compositions.

Photos: The red VW was photographed with my first good camera, a Nikon F and Kodachrome film. The photo of the bugle was made with a Nikkormat, also with Kodachrome. A Canon EOS 20D was used for the two red chairs, and a Canon EOS 5D for the red chaise lounge. Starr's Mill was photographed with the 12-megapixel Olympus E-PL1.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     Georgia    Nikon F camera     Kodachrome film    Canon EOS 20D camera    Nikkormat camera    Canon EOS 5D cameera     Olympus E-PL1 camera     old mills     Starr's Mill