In Praise of the Unspectacular Photograph

  Early Snow.  Sourwood Lane, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

As a follow-up to my previous post "Please Yourself,"I'm reposting a blog from five years ago -- December, 2020.

In November of that year, friend and fellow photo-blogger Dennis Mook, who blogs as The Wandering Lensman at thewanderinglensman.com was on a roll with some really good posts.

On November 19th, he wrote about wabi-sabi, a Japanese term that means the appreciation of "beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature." But when he looks at today's landscape photography, he no longer sees a representation of nature or nature's imperfections: he sees photographs that are dramatic, over-edited, and over-saturated; hyper-real and hyper-perfect.

On November 27th, he posted a photograph that was so quietly beautiful that I was compelled to write in his comments section "This photograph is quietly, modestly, perfectly beautiful. I would hang it on my wall anytime. It is a perfect counterpoint to the "spectacular," overprocessed photographs you wrote about on Nov. 17. . . it will have far more "staying power" on your wall than a so-called "spectacular" landscape. It will give the eye delight and rest every time you walk into the room."

From my very earliest days in photography my aim has been to capture a moment of stillness in each photograph. My name for my portfolio of "art" photographs is "Images of Tranquility." My photographs are mostly quiet, and I hope, quietly beautiful. I don't do spectacular. I just see what I see and try to show it.

Ricky's Trees. Daugherty Gap Road, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

My post-processing is pretty simple: I have an old version of Photoshop -- CS2 -- that does most of what I want to do. Just an exposure adjustment in Curves, if needed, and light burning and dodging with the Brush tool, plus a simple adjustment in Unsharp Masking that enhances mid-tone contrast without affecting highlights or shadows, and I'm done. I want my photographs to look like the scenes as I saw them, not hyped-up renditions that never existed in reality.

Rooted in the Past. S. Dicks Creek Road, Armuchee Valley, Walker County, Georgia.

I realize this will not make me popular with some photographers, and maybe not with the art-photo buying public. So be it. I am thankfully, too old to care.

The Photos: Early Snow was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. For Ricky's Trees, I used a Canon EOS 5D Classic with the Canon EF 70-200mm f4L lens, and for Rooted in the Past, I used an Olympus E-M5 and the Panasonic 14-140mm Vario G lens.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, 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 $4.95 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 2025 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    digital photography   art photography    Walker County, Georgia   Canon EOS 5D Classic camera    McLemore Cove    Canon EF 24-85mmm lens    Canon EOS 20D camera    Canon EF 70-200mm f4L lens    Olympus E-M5 camera    Panasonic 14-140mm Vario G lens

Please Yourself

 Blue on Blue. Florida beach scene, 2007.

Do you like this picture? 

I do, but it's okay if you don't. Not everybody has to like everything. I like it so much that I had a 20 by 30-inch print made that hangs in our guest bedroom. As is frequently said on the internet, YMMV--Your Mileage May Vary.

Most photographers are pleasers. We want people to like our pictures, and  by extension, like us. And of course, if we're photographing for pay, we had better make darn sure the client is pleased. And if we're making family/friends snaps, we want our subjects to be pleased as well.

But if we're photographing for ourselves and want to create significant work, we need to get past that. The world does not need any more cliches. Instead, we need to find our own subjects and our own way of seeing them. Or, they may be subjects everyone else has photographed. We must find a new way of photographing them to make our photographs our own.

What subjects?  I can't answer that question for you.  Edward Weston found his universe in peppers, shells, and rocks. Steiglitz found his in clouds, Ansel Adams in the forces of nature.  Dorothea Lange found hers in the faces of the poor and dispossessed, and Cartier-Bresson found his in the patterns of everyday life.  I have found mine in the play of light across a human face, and across the face of the land.  Ultimately, your answer will come out of your world view.

I believe that this world was created by a loving and sovereign God, and is filled with both beauty and mystery.  I believe he created man in his own image, and although man has fallen and that image has been broken and marred, it still exists.  Man is thus both noble and savage, and the world is a place of both darkness and light, of chaos and order.  I want my photographs to show a world of beauty and mystery, of light and darkness, of nobility in the midst of savagery.  There is chaos, but underlying it, there is order.

Your way of looking at the world may be different from mine.  If it is, your photographs should show that difference.  Your photographs must be yours.  They must come from your heart, your way of seeing life and the world.

So what subject?  The whole world is before you. Please yourself.

The photo was made in Florida in August, 2007 with a Canon EOS digital Rebel (amateur camera) and a Canon EF 24-85mm lens. 

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, 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 $4.95 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 2025 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    digital photography   art of photography    Florida   Canon EOD Rebel camera    beach scenes    Canon EF 24-85mmm lens

The Handyman's Last Stand

The almost-finished guest bathroom countertop.

When we bought our townhouse in January, 2023, both bathrooms were as they had been since the house was built in 1984. In both, the sinks and countertops were molded as one piece of faux marble. Louise wanted countertops of laminated acacia wood and new sinks. So we did the master bath first. Read about it here.

We got the wood for the guest bathroom countertop not long after that. I cut it to size, and Louise stained and varnished it. Then the project got bogged down. I had a bad fall which diminished my lifting ability, so I wasn't strong enough to lift out the faux marble countertop and sink, and I didn't want to break it up in place for fear of cracking the large plate-glass mirror above and behind it.

My son Don wanted to help me, but before he could, he had an acute attack of pericarditis which put him in the hospital and made it impossible for him to do anything for several months. So, the project languished.

It was brought back to life by a request from Louise that what she wanted for Christmas was to have the guest bathroom finished.

Okay, time to move. 

Don is still not available, so I contacted a handyman who had been recommended to me --Andrew Duncan, of (wait for it) Handy Andy Services! Andrew was precise and efficient and we soon had the old sink and countertop out and the new counter in place with the sink connected to the drain, but we then found that the water supply tubes to the faucet that came with the sink were the wrong size to fit the taps under the counter.

I thought I could finish that part myself, so I paid Andrew for his excellent work, sent him home, and ordered another faucet with standard water supply fittings.

I remember my mother telling me, when she was in her early 70s, how hard it was to get up if she got down on the floor for something. I couldn't image it. But I can now. In all, in order to install the faucet and connections, I had to get on my back on the floor four times, put my head and arm in the sink cabinet, and then get up again. I did it, but this 88-year-old body struggled and strained. I wanted to see if I could still do it myself. And I could and I did. But I won't do it again.

Thankfully, the project is mostly finished and Louise is happy with it. I still have a little caulking to do, and I'm going to trim around the edges of the mirror with narrow strips of molding. And then my lifelong career as an unwilling handyman will be officially over.

I hope. . .

The photo: Fuji X-T20 with Fujinon XF 16-80mm (24-120mm equivalent) lens.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, 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 $4.95 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 2025 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    digital photography   home improvement    handyman work   Fuji X-T20 camera    cabinetwork    Fujinon XF 16-80mm lens

Learning to Use Light: Another Example

Another illustration of foods for healthy eating.

What's wrong with this picture?

In my previous post I wrote about an assignment I received early in my career to do tabletop photographs of various items of food for a piece on healthy living. This one didn't make the cut.

You're probably thinking "No wonder! It's too dark!"

That's true, but it's not the only problem with the photo. The deeper problem is that I didn't use a fill light. The main light was high and to my left, as in the previous photo, but there should have been another light, about half the strength of the main light, from the front, at camera position, to fill in some (not all) of the shadows. Consequently, this photo is unusable as an illustration for anything except poor technique.

If I had been more knowledgeable, I would have placed another light, again, about half the strength of the main light, high and about 90 degrees to the right of the set. This would have opened up the shadows on the right and given a little highlight to the vegetables in the basket.

When we were all shooting film, the best way to learn to light was with constant light sources, such as floodlights. Now that we have digital cameras with screens on the back, we can use flash instead of floods by setting up the flashes as we want them, make an exposure, evaluate it on our screens, and make adjustments to the flashes to achieve the effects we desire. Rinse and repeat as needed.

Like the photograph in the previous post, this one was made with a Nikkormat FTN camera with (probably) a Vivitar 100mm f2.8 lens and Kodak Ektachrome 200 film.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, 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 $4.95 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 2025 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   commercial photography    photographic lighting   Nikkormat FTn camera    studio photography    Vivitar 100mm lens     food photography    Kodak Ektachrome 200 film