The Old Mill at Graysville, Georgia

The ruins of Graysville Mill after it was burned, possibly by vandals.

Blog Note: In response to a comment I received about last Friday's post, I'm reposting this article from April, 2022.

When we moved from Miami to Chattanooga in 1970, our new home, while in Tennessee, was only a mile or so from the village of Graysville, Georgia. The old mill, just on the other side of Chickamauga Creek from the village soon became a favorite destination for our walking, biking, or picnic excursions.

The village was laid out in the 1840s by John Gray, the English-born contractor who built the Western and Atlantic Railroad and dug the tunnel at Tunnel Hill. He liked the Northwest Georgia area so much that he bought 4,000 acres on Chickamauga Creek. He dammed the creek and built a large, three-story mill which was burned during the Civil War but was rebuilt in 1869 and continued to operate into the 1950s.

In the early '70s the mill was still pretty much intact. I made some photos of the interior, which are, unfortunately, in storage, but I seem to remember three milling stations with millstones approximately eight feet in diameter. A very impressive operation.

 The mill burned again in the late '70s. Possibly the work of vandals, or, it could have been picnickers or campers who let their fire get out of control. The heavy plank floors and massive wooden beams would have burned like tinder. 

 

 The house built on the mill ruin uses the foundation and original stones.

After the passage of some years, the site was purchased and an unique, three-story house was built on the ruin, using the mill foundation and many of the original stones.

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. 

Photographs and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

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

Bygone Days at Graysville Mill

 Gray's Mill, Graysville, Georgia, early 1970s.

 I think I may have shown this picture before, but I'm writing about it again because it reminds me of a difficult, yet wonderful time. 

Louise and I met and married in Florida and lived there for several years. However, I always wanted to move back to the Chattanooga area, where I had gone to college and grad school. In 1970 we made the move, buying a small house in East Brainerd. I had a difficult time finding a good job; in fact, I bounced around for two years before catching on with Continental Film Productions. That was the true beginning of my professional career as a photographer and writer.

We had no money, but we were an active young family and were always able to find something fun to do. Thanks especially to Louise, who had the gift of making almost anything seem fun. Most days, if the weather was decent we were out walking or riding our bikes around the neighborhood. One of our favorite places was the old mill at Graysville, about a mile from our house.

I'll always cherish our time as a young family. We had so little, yet, we were rich. To this day I'm envious when I see young families and wish I could go back and relive those years.

(The picture was made with a medium format twin-lens reflex Yashica or Rolleicord vb on Kodak Ektachrome film around 1972.)

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 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

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

Breakfast at Susie’s (Repost)

  Breakfast at Susie's Sunset Cafe

 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 succession of businesses, 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.)

 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 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

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

Scanners and Scanning

Clearing Storm, Lookout Mountain

In my post on February 15th, I wrote that you can't get away from digital. If you shoot film, you can't post your photos online or publish them in a magazine or book without converting them to digital images. The process for doing this is called scanning. You can make prints of your film photographs if you have a darkroom or access to one, and show them to your friends or even have a show of your prints in a gallery, but if you want to reach a larger circle, they will have to be scanned.

The very finest scans are made with an instrument called a drum scanner. The photographs in my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era were made with a drum scanner. However the process is expensive and not available to most of us.  

I use two instruments to scan my film photographs. The first is a Minolta-DiMage 5400. It only scans 35mm slides and negatives, but makes very fine scans -- almost as good as a drum scanner. The second is an Epson Perfection 4990 Pro. It's a flatbed scanner, similar to the one on your printer, but better. I use it for transparencies and negatives larger than 35mm, and also for scanning prints.

A third way to digitize film images is to photograph them with a digital camera. A few years ago, friend (although we've never met in person) and fellow photo-blogger, Dennis Mook, bought a full-frame Nikon camera (he normally shoots with Fujis), a macro lens, a lightbox, and some other accessories for close-up work, and spent a summer digitizing his entire collection of film photos in this way. (Check out his blog at www.thewanderinglensman.com/.)

 I haven't done this yet, but have most of the equipment I need. I plan to get started once we're moved and settled in our new home. Scanning with the Minolta-DiMage or the Epson is slow work. The digital camera method will certainly be quicker, and, I hope, will give even better results.

A good scanned film photograph is never quite as sharp or clear as an original digital image, but in any size print you're likely to make, you'll never see the difference unless you examine it with a magnifying glass. The photo of the little barn at the foot of Lookout Mountain was made with a Canon EOS A2 camera and 80-200mm f2.8L lens on Fujichrome 100 film and was scanned on the Minolta-DiMage scanner. It has been printed 36 inches wide and looks great. 

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 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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

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