The Passing of Lifelong Friends (Repost)

Barbara plays the ukulele for Cindy.

(This is a repost from July 8, 2022, in honor of another friend and basketball teammate from my college days who passed away recently.)

I received word today of the passing of two lifelong friends. One was the wife of my roommate my first two years of college; the other was a teammate on my college basketball team. Later, I was the junior varsity basketball coach at the private school in Miami where he was the head coach.

I am saddened, but realize that I am blessed that so many of my lifelong friends are still alive.

Louise and I were on the founding faculty of Florida Christian School in 1968 and were there for two years before moving to Chattanooga. In 1968 and 1969 the staff and many supporters of the school spent the Thanksgiving weekends camping at Jonathan Dickinson State Park on south Florida's east coast. The photograph of Barbara Krall playing the ukulele for Cindy was made on Thanksgiving weekend, 1969 with my first "good" camera, the original Nikon F with the bulbous Photomic pentaprism, and a Tamron 135mm f2.8 lens. The film was Kodachrome 25, which I bought out-of-date for very cheap at the Eagle Army-Navy stores in Miami.

The photo below is the young Jenkins family at Jonathan Dickinson the previous Thanksgiving. It was warm that year, not chilly, as it was in 1969. The photo was made with a Kodak Instamatic, the camera that got me started on my life in photography. The film was color negative of some kind, probably Kodak.

 

The young Jenkins family, 1968

Time passes, and so do we all. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available for $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.

If you would like to have a print of any of my photographs, check out my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  If you don't find what you want there, let me know and I'll arrange to include it in the gallery.

Photography and text copyright 2024 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     Nikon Photomic F camera     Kodachrome 25 film    Florida    Florida Christian School     Jonathan Dickenson State Park    Kodak Instamatic camera     Miami

The Backroads Traveler: The Ogeechee River Mill

  The Ogeechee River Mill. A fully operational mill in Hancock County.

When I first started this blog, I reserved another blog name but never did anything with it. But I always liked the name, and have decided to incorporate The Georgia Backroads Traveler into this blog, to use whenever I write about things specific to Georgia. 

Today, I'm writing about an old mill, as I will do from time to time. The Ogeechee River Mill on the upper reaches of the Ogeechee River, west of Warrenton, on the Warren County/Hancock County line, is unusually beautiful and well-preserved.

The first mill at this location was built in 1847 on the other side of the river, but was rebuilt on its present site in 1933 to avoid flooding. The original wooden dam was replaced by a concrete dam at that time. 

Powered by an underwater turbine rather than an exterior wheel, the mill is in regular service with a number of clients for its products. It's a good idea to call well in advance to arrange a tour, because the mill is located on a working cattle farm and owners Missy Garner and her son Alex Broward are busy people. Call them at 706-464-2195 or 706-831-1432 and leave a message if you don't get an answer. The cost of the tour is $10 for adults; school children get in free. I assure you it will be well worth your money.

 

Two of the millstones. I think there were actually three sets.

 

Southern-style grits are a specialty, and if the mill isn't grinding grits when you visit, you can buy a bag or two at the IGA grocery store in Warrenton.

 

(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

Both photos were made with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera. A Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm lens was used for the exterior view; a Panasonic Lumix 12-32mm lens for the millstones.

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.

If you would like to have a print of one of my photographs, check out my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  If you don't find what you want there, let me know and I'll arrange to include it in the gallery.

Photography and text copyright 2024 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     Olympus E-M5 digital camera     Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm lens    Panasonic Lumix 12-32mm lens    old mills     Warren County, Georgia    Hancock Countty, Georgia     Ogeechee River

The Canon EOS A2: Great But Underrated

Canon A2 with 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens

 I reluctantly gave up on my beloved Olympus OM camera system after 13 years because aging eyes made precise focusing difficult. I then tried Nikon, with an 8008s and a 6006, but didn't get on with them at all.

Then I heard about Canon's Custom Function 4, which made it possible to autofocus on any point, push a small button on the back of the camera, and have the focus held at that point until I wanted to change it. That did it for me. I picked up two Canon EOS bodies, one of them an EOS 10S, which was a really good camera for its time. This was in 2003.

In late 1994, I began work on the Rock City Barns book, and soon picked up a clean, used Canon EOS A2. I liked it so much that I bought a second body in early 1995. Those two cameras were to be my workhorses for the next eight years, until the great digital switchover in 2003. 

 The Canon EOS A2 and its siblings, the A2e and EOS-5, were all-time great sleepers and were one of the best-kept secrets in photography. When first introduced they were nearly ten years ahead of the competition and were used by an astonishing number of working photographers. The A2's combination of just the right features, initial cost, precision, silence, durability, and reliability made it one of the best cameras ever made for day-in, day-out professional work.

As I said, I used a pair for eight years, and they were utterly reliable. My A2s were responsible for an award-winning coffee-table book (Rock City Barns: A Passing Era), numerous brochures, magazine articles, weddings, and all the other things in the work flow of a small-market commercial/editorial photographer. 

When I retired the A2s, I gave one to a friend. The other sits in honored retirement on my bookshelf in memory of some good years in my career.

Below are a few photos from my A2s. All were made on Fujichrome 100D film.

Clearing storm, Lookout Mountain. Canon A2, 80-200mm f2.8L lens.

 

Rock City barn North Carolina 10.

 

 

Manning Brothers General Store. U.S. Highway 341 near Brunswick, GA.

Rock City barn Alabama 11.

 

 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.

If you would like to have a print of one of my photographs, check out my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  If you don't find what you want there, let me know and I'll arrange to include it in the gallery.

Photography and text copyright 2024 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   Canon EOS A2 camera     Canon EOS 10S    Custom Function 4       Fujichrome 100D film     Olympus OM film camera

Street Portraits in Moscow

Young woman on the Arpatskaya. Gesturing for money for her picture.

 In March, 1990, just a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Louise and I toured six eastern European countries that were just beginning to emerge from the darkness of Communism. Our purpose was to gather photographs, video footage, and information so that we could tell the story of how the prayers of believing Christians in those lands had helped precipitate the fall of the Communist empire.

We spent several days in Moscow, where we toured the Kremlin, met with Christian leaders, and attended a meeting of the "Underground Church." 

One afternoon, when I had a few hours break from our schedule, I took my cameras and went for a walk along the Arpatskaya, a pedestrian avenue where artists and street vendors displayed their wares.

One of the vendors -- an artist whose prints are hanging in the background.

 I found these two young women in the Arpatskaya. They were together and obviously friends. One looked as if she had just flown in from Paris; the other had a very Slavic face and was dressed in what I suppose could be called Communist Worker Chic.

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This older lady was preaching to the crowd. I gathered that she may have been a seventh-Day Adventist. After a while, the police came by and shut her down, although not unkindly.

About the equipment: As best I remember, these photos were made with an Olympus OM2n film camera and Fujichrome 100D film. I also took a Leica M3 on this trip, but don't remember if I carried it with me that day. I used a Tokina 100-400mm f4 zoom lens extensively on this trip and probably made all but the last of these photos with it.

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.

If you would like to have a print of one of my photographs, check out my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  If you don't find what you want there, let me know and I'll arrange to include it in the gallery.

Photography and text copyright 2024 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     Eastern Europe    street photography     street portraits    Russia     Moscow     The Arpatskaya     Fujichrome 100D film     Olympus OM2n film camera     Tokina 100-400mm f4 lens     Leica M3