The Old Mill
The Old Mill
This mill is one of my favorite all-time places to photograph. It’s the mill, along the river where mills belong, in Pigeon Forge TN.
My first images were captured in the 1970’s when I was carting around a very large box camera exposing 4×5 sheets of film at about $1.50 per shot. In those days you set up your camera on a very sturdy tripod and carefully measured the light so you could properly set the exposure. Then you clicked one picture of the subject. After you rode the horse home, no we had cars in the 70’s, you took the film back to the lab, spent hours processing and printing it 15 different ways, much like we edit images today to come up with the image that you saw in the field.
Now you stroll up to a scene, point your camera at the subject, click off 250 shots, look at them, find one you like, transfer it to your phone and shoot it out to your friends on facebook. If you’re a millennial or gen z you stand in front of it and take a selfie with the scene.
Funny but I never imagined capturing a selfie in front of this mill using a 4×5 film camera in the 70’s. That might have been cool.