Rock City Barn GA-12
GA Hwy. 42, Monroe
County, Georgia
Canon EOS A2,
Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens
(This is a repost from March 4, 2020.)
In the absence of any clear idea of what they hope to achieve, photographers often sub-consciously seek to define themselves by their equipment. It can be fun for those who can afford it, but it avoids the real question: Who am I as a photographer? What is my passion? Until you can answer that, you "ain't gonna get no satisfaction." Because ultimately, it's not the tools nor the act of photography that counts. It's the subject, your relationship to it, and your feelings about it.
The photographer who finds his voice, his niche, his passion, most likely will also find that he can do whatever he wants to do with a relatively small amount of equipment. An exception, of course, would be the photographer whose passion is birds in flight, action sports, or auto racing. But for myself, I can do everything I want to do with a few Fuji bodies and three or four lenses; equipment which is also sufficient for the occasional commercial gig I get.
As I've said several times (but who's counting?), I found my voice, my passion, in photography in the early 1970s, but did not recognize it for what it was until years later.
I have always been drawn to the old, the abandoned, the worn out, the passing away. Abandoned buildings, abandoned cars – whatever man has used, worn out, and discarded -- fascinate me, because they speak of worn out lives, lived and discarded with neither name nor history.
As I've said several times (but who's counting?), I found my voice, my passion, in photography in the early 1970s, but did not recognize it for what it was until years later.
I have always been drawn to the old, the abandoned, the worn out, the passing away. Abandoned buildings, abandoned cars – whatever man has used, worn out, and discarded -- fascinate me, because they speak of worn out lives, lived and discarded with neither name nor history.
FOR SALE
(Unidentified Auto from the Mid-1930s)
U.S. Hwy. 411, Gordon
County, Georgia
Canon EOS A2,
Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens
I am especially drawn to the
remnants of mid-twentieth-century roadside culture because I lived it. In the
1950s and '60s I hitch-hiked the two-lane highways of America. I saw
the Rock City barns, the Mail Pouch Tobacco
barns, the roadside fast-food stands built to look like giant chickens or hot
dogs, the wigwam motels. Like Tennyson's Ulysses, "I am a part of
all I have met." Or more accurately, all I have met is part of me.
I admire the work of nature
photographers such as David Meunch and the late Galen Rowell, but am much more
drawn to the work of the great observers of the human scene, such as Elliott
Erwitt, Robert Doisneau, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. I wish I could do what they
do. I've tried, and I know I will never photograph insightful slices of life as
well as they do. But I have a niche of my own, and I can be content. Rather
than photographing nature or the human condition, my passion and my role is to
document the interface between nature and the crumbling works of man.
(Both photos made with Fujichrome 100D film.)
Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/
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 a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
