How good does it have to be?

Civil War Bugle. Photographed in 1975 with a Nikkormat and Kodachrome film.

 

Twenty years ago I got my first digital camera. Before that, I was a film photographer for 35 years. At least half the photographs I show on this blog were originally shot on film, then scanned on a Minolta-DiMage 5400 scanner, making files 13 x 19 inches (5704 x 3885 pixels) in size. A scan from a sharp 35mm slide will make a very satisfying 24 x 36 inch print.

A digital file from even a six-megapixel camera will make a 24 x 36 inch print that is even sharper. But you would have to look very hard to see the difference. Some of my best photos of the last 20 years were made with the 12-megapixel Canon 5D Classic. The architects who commissioned me to make large prints of their buildings had no complaints about the 5D's sharpness.

But different photographers have different needs. Some of my photographer-friends, including my brother Phil, are investing in cameras with very high pixel counts because of the type of photography they do, especially wildlife and birds. I wish them all the best, but the kind of photography I do does not require that much firepower. I have two Fujifilm cameras, each with a 24-megapixel sensor. They do everything I want and need to do. In fact, I could probably dig out my old Olympus OM2n and lenses, load it with Fuji slide film, and make photographs that would satisfy me and my clients just as well. How good does it have to be, anyway? 

If there's a moral to this rambling, it's this: learn who you are as a photographer. Learn what you want to say with your pictures. Then choose the equipment that will help you express your vision. The newest, shiniest toys are not necessarily the best -- for you.

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

What Is a Rock City?

Swingalong Bridge at Rock City Gardens spans a deep crevasse.

 

 Traci asked, "What is Rock City?" To answer her question, here's an excerpt from my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era.

"Probably the third-most-asked question by travelers south in the 1950s and '60s (after "are we almost there yet?" and "When do we eat?") was "What the heck is a rock city?" Tempted beyong endurance by the pervasive message of the ubiquitous signs, millions made the pilgrimage up Lookout Mountain to see for themselves what it was all about.

            What they found was a ten-acre tract of massive stone formations (hence the name "Rock City") on the eastern cliffs of the mountain overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee and the North Georgia countryside. Laid out with flower-bordered trails winding through deep crevasses and along cliff tops, Rock City Gardens is an oddly pleasing blend of magnificent natural beauty and a charming naïveté. The naïveté comes in the form of trailside elfin figurines, walking "storybook" characters (Mother Goose, Humpty-Dumpty, Rocky the Rock City elf) and Fairyland Caverns, a man-made cave featuring black-lighted dioramas of nursery rhyme scenes. This is what family entertainment was like before Disney World and video games, and the place still holds a special fascination for kids of all ages.

            Although the rock formations have been there for a long, long time, Rock City as a tourist attraction is the brainchild of a freewheeling, cigar-smoking entrepreneur named Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda, a lover of beauty and folklore. During the 1920s, while Garnet was developing a fashionable 100-acre subdivision called Fairyland on Lookout Moutain and inventing the game of miniature golf (which he franchised nationally under the name "Tom Thumb Golf"), Frieda was making Rock City, which was a part of Fairyland, into her own personal nature garden. She laid out trails and planted their borders with hundreds of wildflowers and shrubs indigenous to the southern mountains. For her efforts she was awarded the Bronze Medal of Distinction by the Garden Club of America in 1931, the first Southerner to be so honored.

            In the meantime, the Carter fortunes had changed. The stock market crash of 1929 put an end to the building boom of the '20s. And while Tom Thumb Golf was doing very well, Carter foresaw the end of the miniature golf craze and managed to unload it in 1930 at a handsome figure. Unfortunately, he invested the proceeds in U.S. Steel stock at $298 a share, which promptly dropped to $30.

            Finding himself not exactly broke, but feeling some pain, Carter turned his full attention to his wife's little garden. Motivated both by economic possibilities and by love for his wife, who was then in the beginning stages of a debilitating disease, he began to expand upon the improvements she had begun. The trails were widened and paved with flagstones and suspension bridges were built over chasms. Statues of gnomes and storybook characters, which had adorned fhr Fairyland neighborhood and the original Tom Thumb golf course at the Fairyland Inn (now the Fairyland Club) were moved to Rock City. On May 21, 1932, the park was opened to the public.

            Unfortunately, the country was in the depths of depression and the tourism industry was still in its infancy. In spite of intense promotion, only eighteen hundred people came that first year, and things did not improve substantially until 1935, 36, or 37, depending on whose memory you trust. Clark Byers says 1937 -- or maybe 1936 -- was the year he began painting "See Rock City" on barns around the Southeast, and things began to look up for the attraction.

            "I couldn't figure out how in the world Garnet Carter could afford to pay me $40 a sign," says Byers. "But boy, I went up to Rock City one day and the parking lots was full and people parked all around, and the signs had brought them in there. And I realized really, how smart he was, y'know."

            Whether one can actually see seven states from the sheer cliffs of Lover's Leap will continue to be debated, but Rock City is a place that's easy to like" 

If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

 

Time for a Short Winter Break

                              A winter barnyard scene on U.S. 11W northeast of Knoxville, Tennessee.

The arctic weather is finally easing its grip on our campsite a few miles north of Knoxville. We have been able to keep warm in our RV, but our water has been frozen for days, which is inconvenient but unfortunately, not a new experience for me. I grew up in the southern Indiana hills in a house without running water, and in the great blizzard of March, 1993 our water was frozen for a week. 

However, the cumulative effects of the recent cold snap have left me feeling a little bummed out. 

Plus, I have a busy few days ahead.

Thursday we are driving to Atlanta for the wedding reception of grandson Nathan and his bride Hannah. We'll be back Saturday night. Then, on Monday, January 2, we have to move to a different site in this campground. So I'm going to take a little winter break. I'll be back Wednesday, January 4th.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

The Origin of the Rock City Birdhouse

 Clark Byers and the first Rock City Birdhouse.

Clark Byers, the man who painted "See Rock City" on more than 800 barns over 30 years, most of them multiple times, was also the inventor of the distinctive red-and-black birdhouse which is now a principal advertising device for Rock City. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of them, have been sold.

I went to interview Byers at his home in 1995 as I was working on the Rock City Barns book. A warm, soft-spoken man of deep Christian faith, Byers was quietly happy with the life he had lived.  In addition to his years of painting Rock City barns, he was the developer of Sequoyah Caverns, a tourist attraction in northeast Alabama, and at the age of 80 still ran a three hundred acre farm. For years the roof of his home on U.S. 11 in Rising Fawn, Georgia, just over the state line from Alabama, sported a "See Rock City" sign.

"I painted the first birdhouse that Rock City ever had," he told me. "It was my original idea -- I didn't copy nobody. I was gonna use it for a mailbox, but the Post Office wouldn't let us. It's still settin' in my garage."

Of course I wanted to see it, so he brought it out and placed it atop his mailbox. Naturally, I took a picture. And that's the story of how the Rock City birdhouse came to be. 

Rock City picked up on the idea and began making and selling the birdhouses. As far as I know, Clark never received a cent for his invention. 

Blog note: Sorry to have missed Friday's post. We are in a deep freeze here, with temperatures just above zero. We are keeping warm in our RV, but our water is frozen. All-in-all, we're doing okay. No thaw predicted until Tuesday.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.