Ramblin' 'round northeast Georgia

Abandoned tractor in soybean field, Georgia Highway 75 ALT, White County.

As I've said before, even though I lived in the northwest corner of Georgia, I usually found more interesting things to photograph in northeast Georgia. 

This tractor was parked in a field beside Georgia 75 ALT in White County. It's obviously really old. Growing up on a farm in the 1940s and '50s as I did, I can say it's older than anything I saw in our area. On the other hand, it has rubber tires, so it's not as old as the tractors with metal lug wheels. I'm guessing it's from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s. There's no way to tell how long it's been sitting in that field, but it's been long enough for the front tires to have rotted away.

       Ford 8N tractor in shed, U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

The Ford 8N is one of the most popular tractors every made. Manufactured from 1947 to 1952, 530,000 of the distinctive grey and red machines were sold around the world. In the U.S., many thousands of them are still in use, probably most of them performing light duty on small farms. A full range of parts is still available to keep them running.

Cudzu, the plant that ate the South. U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

 

Cudzu, also spelled Kudzu, was imported from Japan in the late 19th century for erosion control and as a cattle feed. My Dad, always a visionary, planted some on our property in southern Indiana for that purpose around 1950. It didn't work out. Years later, two of my brothers, who bought the property from our Dad, leased some acreage to a farmer who finally managed to root out the pesty vine. In the South, as any traveler knows, the evil weed still covers large areas. 

Skeenah Creek Mill, Georgia Highway 60, Fannin County.

The drive from Dahlonega to Blue Ridge via Georgia 60 is only 31 miles, but the twisting, winding highway makes it seem much further. Around the half way point is the Skeenah Creek Mill, located at the rear of the Skeenah Creek Campground. The mill is still operational, but not currently in use. If you're a mill buff, it makes the trip worthwhile.

Johnson Mill, Cooley Woods Road, Cleveland, Georgia.

Dating from the early 1800s, Johnson Mill, on the edge of Cleveland, is well-preserved and fully operational. The owners have taken a great deal of care with the landscaping, making this one of the loveliest settings I have seen for a mill. The mill property also includes a very nicely restored log cabin with rocking chairs on the porch. Across the street is a log double-pen barn and a covered bridge spanning the mill creek. This is altogether an idyllic place and well worth a visit.

About the photos: The Abandoned Tractor, Ford Tractor in Shed, and Cudzu were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D camera with an EF 24-85mm lens. The Skeenah Creek Mill and Johnson Mill were photographed with a Canon EOS 6D camera with an EF 28-105mm lens.

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    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 6 D camera    Canon EF 24-85mm lens   Canon EF 28-105mm lens

Commonplace

Abandoned one-room school (or possibly a church) near Cleveland, Georgia.

In 1974, noted photographer David Plowden published Commonplace, his eighth book of photographs. It was described as "a careful and affectionate look at small-town and back-road America in the 1960s and '70s." Just commonplace things and scenes. The book is still available at Amazon if you're interested.

Like the photographs in Plowden's book, very few of my photographs are outstanding or spectacular. Mostly, they depict the ordinary, everyday things or scenes we pass by with little or no notice. My hope is to impart some significance to commonplace things by seeing and photographing them in a fresh way.  

Monument. (Oglethorpe County, Georgia.)

 

Abandoned hayrake. Southwest Georgia.

 

Cogdell Store. South Georgia.

 Brown-eyed Susans. U.S. Highway 41 near Valdosta, Georgia.

I apologize for the imprecise location data for some of these pictures. Several years ago I lost my travel notebook covering the time span during which they were taken. If you're serious about photography, keep a notebook of when and where you make your pictures. You will never regret it.

Main Street, Pavo, Georgia.

About the photos: The picture of the abandoned school was made with a Fuji X-H1 camera fitted with the Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens. "Monument" was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. All the other photos were made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic, also with the 24-85mm lens.

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    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Fuji X-H1 camera   Fujicron XC16-50mm lens

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