Updated Gallery: Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park, Pine Mountain

As I mentioned yesterday, Gerald and I enjoyed a lovely first-of-spring drive out of middle Georgia. Our destination was Pine Mountain, home of F. D. Roosevelt State Park. Needless to say, there were cameras involved.

Starting on Dowdell Knob, FDR’s favorite picnic spot — with its amazing valley overlook:

Roosevelt’s Grill With a View, Dowdell Knob

Next was the park’s office and overlook complex:

FDR State Park Office (B&W Study), Pine Mountain
Stone, Shutters, and Stars and Stripes
FDR State Park Overlook: Rocks

Peruse the entire gallery here. And when you have some extra time, all of FDR State Park is worth a visit; it’s got everything from hiking trails to cabins to the Callaway Gardens Country Kitchen in its 9049 acres. Enjoy!

Bonus: Georgia Public Broadcasting, at the premier of its film A President in Our Midst: Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Georgia, said:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a very special relationship with the State of Georgia. This compelling documentary spotlights the mutual benefits that the friendship provided to both the president and the people of Georgia. The film is based on the book, A President in Our Midst: Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Georgia.

It’s no Ken Burns, certainly, but if you’re not familiar with FDR’s extensive time spent in west Georgia, it might be worth your time. See it here.

Bonus gallery: Callaway Gardens, from 2008.

New and Updated Galleries: Woodland, Thomaston, and Yatesville

The end of winter here in Georgia means beautifully warm days, flowers and trees budding, and photography. Gerald and I took a road trip this weekend, enjoying almost 200 miles of driving — and four photostrolls.

We’ll cover three today, heading west from Middle Georgia:

Yatesville Peach Blossoms #1

See everything from Yatesville, pop. 408, here.

Next is an update from Thomaston, whose downtown square is typical of Georgia:

Upson County Courthouse (B&W Study #2), 2022

That gallery is available here.

Lastly today is a new stop: Woodland, in west-central Georgia, near Pine Mountain and Warm Springs, northeast of Columbus.

Woodland Antiques
Postal Angel (Awning to be Free)

Woodland, whose population also happens to be 408, has a gallery here.

Many thanks to Gerald for the company and good day. Next up: FDR State Park, likely tomorrow.

Where You At? A Bioregional Quiz

A few days ago, Jason Kottke posted an item that raised an important enough question — well, twenty of them — that I wanted to repeat it here. The questions stem from a 1981 quiz1Developed by Leonard Charles, Jim Dodge, Lynn Milliman, and Victoria Stockley, originally published in Coevolution Quarterly 32, from winter 1981, asking how well you know your local natural environment. They are:

  1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
  2. How many days til the moon is full? (Slack of 2 days allowed.)
  3. What soil series are you standing on?
  4. What was the total rainfall in your area last year (July-June)? (Slack: 1 inch for every 20 inches.)
  5. When was the last time a fire burned in your area?
  6. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the culture that lived in your area before you?
  7. Name 5 edible plants in your region and their season(s) of availability.
  8. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?
  9. Where does your garbage go?
  10. How long is the growing season where you live?
  11. On what day of the year are the shadows the shortest where you live?
  12. When do the deer rut in your region, and when are the young born?
  13. Name five grasses in your area. Are any of them native?
  14. Name five resident and five migratory birds in your area.
  15. What is the land use history of where you live?
  16. What primary ecological event/process influenced the land form where you live? (Bonus special: what’s the evidence?)
  17. What species have become extinct in your area?
  18. What are the major plant associations in your region?
  19. From where you’re reading this, point north.
  20. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?

I did poorly. (In the words of the authors, “It’s hard to be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all.”) In fact, I did so poorly that I decided to not only follow up on the questions but put my camera where my mouth is.

In answer to the first question, Macon and a good chunk of Middle Georgia get their drinking water from the Ocmulgee River:

Ocmulgee (River) Origin

In fact, this past weekend’s trip to Monticello and Barnesville were merely extensions of the trip to Jackson Lake and Dam, so I could see where the Ocmulgee starts. Next up is to trace the Yellow, Alcovy and South Rivers, which feed Jackson Lake. (See the rest of the photographs from the Jackson area.)

Jackson Dam #1

But I’d ask everyone reading this to ask yourselves the same questions. As Kottke points out, most of the people living here years ago would have known more of the answers than those of us who live in the built environment do. He passes on an idea from Rob Walker:

Pick one of the questions you don’t know the answer to – and make it a point to learn what that answer is. After you’ve mastered that, move on to a new question.

Go!

  • 1
    Developed by Leonard Charles, Jim Dodge, Lynn Milliman, and Victoria Stockley, originally published in Coevolution Quarterly 32, from winter 1981

New Gallery: Jackson, Georgia

This past weekend’s road trip included five stops, including Monticello and Barnesville, which I covered in the last post. However, there were three more stops in the middle.

Jackson Dam, which forms the headwaters of the Ocmulgee River — and which has a fishing area with this neat scene:

Walk and Deck, Jackson Dam

Jackson Lake, formed by the Yellow, Alcovy, and South Rivers:

Jackson Lake (Wideangle)

And Jackson proper, which has a traditional (for Georgia, at least) town square with a courthouse:

Butts County Courthouse #5, Jackson

Also, this — with perhaps too cute a title:

Downtown Door During Reconstruction, Jackson

All of these have been added to a new gallery. Check it out.

Monticello and Barnesville Galleries Updated

February has been beautiful here in Georgia, with spring just beginning to show — which means the Leica and I are out and about again.

Let’s start in Monticello. (Although named for Jefferson’s estate of the same name, it’s actually pronounced “Monti-sello.”) The tractor’s still there:

Monticello Tractor (Pinhole)

And my chase of architectural details continues anew:

Cornice and Corbel, Collected

More to see in the updated gallery. (A reminder: once there, click on any photo to start a slideshow.)

Next, Barnesville:

Red Southern Caboose Against Blue Sky

Across Main Street is this:

Whitewalls of Thine Increase

Enjoy that updated gallery, too.

Bonus Update: Gave the 235 some exercise, too — which means a couple of photographs.

New: Cochran and Dublin Galleries

Spring is fleeting here in Middle Georgia — a heat wave next week promises triple-digit weather — so took the camera for a wander. Cochran and the other Middle Georgia State University was up first:

Cochran - MGA

A few shots from Cochran’s downtown, as well:

Cochran - Downtown

See the new Cochran gallery here.

Next up was a brief stop on Chester — single photograph posted here — then Dublin, where Martin Luther King made his first public speech, in 1944. There’s a little park to commemorate:

Dublin - MLK park

Downtown, alas, prominently features a Confederate monument (like so many places here in Georgia):

We’re working on it. Meanwhile, check Dublin’s new gallery here.

Last but not least, added a few shots to Macon’s miscellaneous gallery:

East Macon fire watch tower

Check the whole thing, covering almost fifteen years, here.

Special thanks to Prof. Gerald Lucas for the continued use of his Voigtlander 21mm ƒ1.8.

More New and Updated Middle Georgia Photography Galleries

New this week is the delightful little town of Yatesville, on the road from Macon to Thomaston:

See the rest in the new Yatesville gallery. And speaking of Thomaston:

Only a few photographs in that gallery, but more when I get a chance. Next, Barnesville:

I could have sworn I had more photographs from there, but am glad to have at least added to that gallery. Lastly, I’ve added to the Forsyth gallery:

All of the new photographs are from Forsyth’s City Cemetery.

Enjoy!

Downtown Gallery Updated (and… Updated)

As mentioned yesterday, Gerald purchased a Voigtlander Ultron 21mm f1.8 — a very nice, German-owned (Japanese-made), manual-focus lens — last month, and he was kind enough to loan it to me for a couple of days.

We — that is, the lens and I — went for a short photostroll in downtown Macon this afternoon. Check the results in the updated gallery.

Edit, 6 March, 2021: I’ve rejigged the Macon galleries, and the featured photograph from this post is now in the Macon – Miscellaneous gallery (as the Catholic church is up the hill from downtown).

Rose Hill Gallery Updated (Again)

My good friend Prof. Gerald Lucas has been collecting lenses again, and since we both shoot with Leica L-mount cameras, we’re able to share — and he was kind enough to do precisely that. (Thank you, sir!). He’s added classics like the Asahi Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.8, Olympus Zuiko 28mm f/2.8, and Юпитер-8 (Jupiter-8) 2/50. (He’s added a brand-new Voightlander Ultron 21mm f1.8, as well — nice.)

Rose Hill and Riverside serve as familiar ground for us, meaning that when new photographic tools are available, we go there to see how well we work together; the gallery is twelve years old. See the update here. Enjoy.

The United Kingdom, Revisited

In 2011, my good friend Gerald Lucas gave me an irresistible opportunity: almost a week in England. He was teaching there that summer, and there was University housing available — which meant a visit for the price of a plane ticket, food, and a rental car. One word: absolutely.

Needless to say, I went with camera in-hand — Nikon back then, specifically a D3 with 24-70 and 70-200 lenses — and made it into one large photostroll.

Today, thanks to migrating my Aperture libraries to Lightroom, I had the excuse to revisit some of these images, re-edit some, and repost — a new total of 357 photographs. Take a trip to London, Cambridge, Winchester, Salisbury, and Bath with me. Enjoy!