Breakfast at Susie’s

 Breakfast at Susie's Sunset Cafe

(Click to enlarge)

 

The name of Susie’s Café on the square in beautiful downtown LaFayette, Georgia was officially Susie’s Sunset Café. But I always thought it should have been named Susie’s Sunrise Café, because the early morning sun streamed in through the plate-glass front windows and illuminated everything all the way to the back wall.

Susie’s had booths down each side for those who preferred a feeling of relative privacy, but it also had a couple of long tables down the center where lawyers, businessmen, farmers, factory workers, and gas station attendants ate their breakfasts together and chewed the fat (no reflection on the bacon or sausage) in amiable equality. 

Susie's has been gone for several years now, replaced by a Japanese restaurant, and LaFayette is the poorer for its loss. Places like Susie's are the heart and soul of country towns. 

On a technical note, the photograph was made with an Olympus SPn rangefinder camera with a non-interchangeable 40mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia RD 100 film. I had noticed the potential for this picture sometime previously, but it took more than one attempt to get myself seated in the best position with the most interesting combination of people in place. No one noticed me as I made a few exposures with my small camera from a booth to one side.

(Photograph and text adapted from my limited-edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.)

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

In Praise of the Unspectacular Photograph

  

Early Snow

Sourwood Lane, McLemore Cove

Walker County, Georgia

Friend and fellow photo-blogger Dennis Mook, who blogs as The Wandering Lensman at thewanderinglensman.com has been on a roll lately 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

South 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.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Time to Go

Our herd, on a foggy morning.

We raised cattle for 24 years. It was

a lot of work and deeply satisfying.

 

Well, it has finally happened. We have a contract on our home and property; the property which we bought 35 years ago, onto which we moved in a 12x40 mobile home 33 years ago this month, and the home which we built almost 27 years ago. It has been an incredible journey. But it's time to go. Upkeep and maintenance are more than we care any longer to deal with. The choice is not easy, but nonetheless clear. We can walk out now, or be carried out later. We think (hope) we have a few more years of traveling in us and that's what we'd like to do.

We have about five weeks before we have to be out of our house to make room for the crew that will set up our estate sale. We're pretty much selling out to the walls, taking with us only those things that will fit in a fifth-wheel trailer or motor home, plus a small storage unit. It's amazing how much two people can accumulate in more than 55 years of marriage. I had thought that it would hurt to give up all these "things," but you know, it really doesn't. We used them, we enjoyed owning them, and now we're ready to move on. 

Our 22-foot travel trailer and Chevy 1500 pickup which have served us so well will have to make way for a trailer large enough to live in and a truck powerful enough to pull it. It's been great, especially the trip west in 2018. 

I'll do my best to keep up my regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday blogging schedule, but things are gonna be really busy around here for the next month or two, so some posts may be short or MIA.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

The Chicken Farmer of Cook County

Chicken Farmer Danny Gandy with pet rooster.

U.S. Highway 41, Cook County, Georgia

"This is not a fighting cock."

 

Traveling north through Cook County on U.S. Highway 41 after leaving his sick Honda with a mechanic friend near Hahira, Michael Largent and I noticed a small house beside the road with a yard full of the distinctive shelters often used by those who raise fighting cocks. Each shelter had a large and colorful rooster attached to it by a tether. 

Danny Gandy's chicken farm. Although some of the

roosters appear to be free, they are actually tethered.

I thought it was a sight worth photographing, so we pulled off the road. In a few moments we were met by the affable Danny Gandy, owner of the establishment, who explained to us that these were not fighting chickens. It is not illegal to raise gamecocks in Georgia, but fighting them is. Nonetheless, the "sport" continues, with the law often looking the other way. 

Danny was very cooperative, allowing me to make as many photographs as I wished and proudly posing with his roosters, all the while assuring me that "these are not fighting chickens." 

One of Danny's roosters.

 Despite all his assurances I somehow doubted if any of those roosters would ever see the inside of a WalMart freezer. But I wrote down Danny's address and sent him a print of the picture at the top of this post.

All photos Canon EOS 5D Classic, 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone