My domain is the old, the odd, and the ordinary; the beautiful, the abandoned, and the about to vanish away. I am a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.
Abandoned Corvair, Sunbury, Georgia. I've been blessed with pretty robust health for most of my life. In fact, I was doing okay at age 87 until I had a bad fall while going down into a canyon to photograph Potter's Falls near Wartburg, Tennessee. (You can read about it here .) That cost me some walking mobility, and things have been moving slowly downhill since then. I haven't been writing much…
Birds on the canal, Bruges, Belgium. Blog Note: This post was originally written in 2022, but for some reason not posted at that time. I discovered it a few days ago while looking through my blog archives. 1990 was our big year for touring Europe. In February and March, Louise and I visited nine countries, mostly in Eastern Europe, just as they were emerging from 70 years of Communist domination,…
Old Ford pickup in auto graveyard, U.S. 27, Troup County, Georgia. Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 One: The Thing Is the Thing The one essential thing without which no photograph can exist is the thing itself -- the subject. As the late, great Bill Jay wrote: This immediate emotional or intellectual response to the subject matter is at the core of photography. Its periphery…
Louise in the "kitchen" of our first camper. I am an amateur photographer. The word "amateur" is derived from the Latin "amare" which means "to love." Since buying a cheap Instamatic camera in 1968 to make pictures of my newborn son, I have carried a camera with me most of the time and pointed it at what ever caught my interest. Including, of course, many pictures of my family. And although my…
Horse laugh. Near Riceville, McMinn County, Tennessee. A few weeks ago I took on the issue of "photographs" created by AI. Are they photographs, or are they not? My position is that they are not photographs. As I wrote before, t he essence of photography is that it is photographic . It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized…
Daffodils along West Cove Road, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia. Do you look deeply at your photographs after you've made them to see what they are truly about? I'm not talking about things like composition, exposure, focus, and such, although those are necessary and important. I'm talking about meaning and message. Those elements are often not evident at first glance. We may have to live…
Dragons in the Backyard. Clarkesville, Georgia. One pleasant early fall day as my son Rob and I were wandering around northeast Georgia to see (and photograph) whatever of interest we might find, we were driving along a street that ran by the backyards of some houses, when Rob suddenly exclaimed "Dad! Look at that!" It was a cast metal dragon and an eagle in someone's backyard. So of course I…
W. L. Coker's New River General Store, TN Hwy. 116, Anderson County. Blog note: I'm re-posting this blog entry about what I thought was a little-known store in a remote place on a lightly-traveled highway because it generated such a surprising and unusual number of page views and comments. In 1937 (the year of my birth!) W.L Coker and his wife Belle built a two-story brick building on a remote…
Abandoned. U.S. 27, Rhea County, Tennessee. Over the years this blog has had maybe 5,000 hits, more or less, per month. Ten thousand hits in one month was cause for celebration. Recently, that number has increased radically to 15,000 hits, 17,000 hits, 25,000. . . Then in May the number shot up to 60,000. So far, there have been nearly 40,000 hits in May. Success, right? Well, maybe. Posting three…
Abandoned store, Georgia Highway 100, Meriwether County. The past week or so has been busy, busy, busy, with two days of Devlin's and Anna-leise's wedding celebration at Pigeon Forge. It was a great time, with lots of family all in the same hotel, and a shuttle to the wedding venue on a nearby mountain. I did too much walking on my game legs and have still not fully recovered. But it was a great…
Devlin discovers the sprinkler. I made this photo of my grandson Devlin discovering the sprinkler in 2004, when he was almost three. He's 26 now, and at 6'2"and 210 pounds, is definitely a big boy. He's also a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee, where he studied something in nuclear physics so advanced I don't even know how to tell you about it. I suspect he does not consider the…
The Eagle Tavern has been a Watkinsville landmark for 225 years. Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Entering Watkinsville from the northwest via Main Street, on your left, across from the courthouse, is the Eagle Tavern , at 26 North Main Street. Built around 1801, it was an important inn, tavern, and stagecoach stop on the route between Milledgeville and Athens. The tavern also…
A Cross in the sky. (Chicago skyline, 1990). Today I am 89 years old. That sounds impressive until you consider the fact that if I live to the age of 100 I have already used up 89 percent of my life! That doesn't mean I'm pessimistic. I'm looking forward to whatever time I may have left. There are still miles I haven't driven and photographs I haven't made. In fact I have a standing offer from my…
Bishop John Mambo welcomes the ambassador from Mozambique to his home. Upon arrival at Lusaka, the capital and major city of Zambia, I was met at the airport by Bishop John Mambo, the Church of God National Overseer. I stayed at his home for the week I was in Zambia. Bishop Mambo was a charismatic leader and a busy man, meeting with members of the government, other church leaders, and even…
Lagos, Nigeria. One of the largest cities in the world. Moving on from Ghana, I flew to Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria and also the largest in Africa. Nigeria itself, with more than 200 million people, is the most populous country on the continent. At the time I was there the population was 50% Christian and 50% Muslim, however the Muslims have carried on an intensive campaign of persecution…
Young Christian couple with baby. The people I met in Ghana were friendly and welcoming, with the exception of one officious young man I met in a public park in Kumasi. I was walking around making pictures of various things that caught my eye when he approached me and demanded to know what I was doing. "Just making some pictures," I replied. "Who authorized you to do this?" he demanded. "Nobody,"…
Little Ghanaian girl surprised by the tall westerner pointing his camera at her. In 1989 Church of God World Missions sent me to Africa to document their work in three countries -- Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. I spent about a week in each country making photographs and gathering inform ation. My first stop was in Ghana, where, because of an error by the World Missions Department I waited in the…
here Man with pipe. Kumasi, Ghana. Less than one month before my 89th birthday, old age is announcing its imminent arrival. My fall at Potter's Falls in 2024 (you can read about it here ) caused nerve damage affecting my hips legs, and feet. It has greatly limited my walking, in particular, which affects my photography. I can walk as needed, but not far, and it isn't much fun. I hate that! When we…
The reworked (again!) bathroom sink and counter. Photographed with my trusty Fuji X-T3 and the 16-80mm lens. Sorry my posts have been sporadic of late. We have been very busy. First, there's income tax day, which will be here by the time you read this (and I'm not finished with ours!). Then, there's the matter of dealing with our insurance company to replace our hail-damaged roof. And last but not…
Rock City Barn Ga-26. I found this Rock City barn on U.S. Highway 19, just south of Butler, in Taylor County, Georgia. It was not on the list Rock City had given me -- in fact, I learned about it from the mechanic who worked on my car. The light was bland, but I made a few photos anyway, in case I were unable to return to the site, and went on south on Highway 19 to look for other barns. That…
Sunrise casts golden beams and long shadows toward t he old (1894) Cove Methodist Church, on GA Hwy 341 south of Chickamauga. As I'm sure most of my readers know, the word "photograph" is derived from two Greek words: photos , which mean s light , and gr apho , which means to write . So when we photograph, we are literally writing with light. It is light which makes our photographic subjects…
The Old Sautee Store is just a few minutes from Helen in northeast Georgia. The Old Sautee Store is the oldest operating general store in Georgia. Located in the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley, just minutes from Helen, it was a full-service country store selling food, clothing, seed, and farm equipment, and was also the post office from 1913 until 1962. The store interior has been preserved as a museum,…
Chicken Farmer Danny Gandy with pet rooster. U.S. Highway 41, Cook County, Georgia "This is not a fighting cock." (Too busy to write, so I'm reposting a blog from December, 2020) 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…
A Corner of England was published by Devon Books in 1995. This book is very well-produced and, as far as I know, is the only book by Ravilious containing his color photography, for which he used Kodachrome 25 film. I purchased my copy in 2015 and was delighted to find it had been signed by Ravilious himself. Amazon currently has used copies for $41.35. The Heart of the Country is the oldest…
When I became interested in James Ravilious and his photography I immediately began to look for books of his work. As best I remember, my first purchase was An English Eye , which I bought in 2014. I consider this the basic book about Ravilious and his work. Some good photos and lots of information about his life, his work, and his tools and techniques. Paperback copies (which is what I have) are…