Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Tag: Tennessee

  • Tennessee mountain flowers on Kodak Ektar 100

    While I was in the Smokies in September, I took a couple hours to myself and walked down and back up the hill with my Nikon N2000 and my 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 Zoom Nikkor lens, with Kodak Ektar 100 inside. I shot all sorts of things on my walk, but I can seldom resist photographing flowers before I pass…

  • A visit to the Smokies

    I’m stuck on Indiana, but in the unlikely event of exile I’d hightail it straight to Tennessee. I love it there. I fell hard on my first visit, about 30 years ago. I nodded off in the back seat somewhere in Kentucky and awoke as our Tennessee mountain ascent built pressure in my ears. I lifted my head that autumn…

  • Kodak Automatic 35F

    The Kodak Automatic 35F is an early-1960s viewfinder camera with a built-in selenium light meter. It’s a decent performer, if you can find one working.

  • Zeiss Ikon Contessa LK

    Zeiss Ikon is one of those names that makes camera collectors go weak in the knees and part with large sums of money. Those sums seem large to me, anyway, given that the most I will pay for a camera is $50. Zeiss Ikon’s optics are said to be worth tall stacks of bills, and…

  • An abandoned road in the woods: US 127 in central Tennessee

    In a big way, you can drive all over the country on the Interstates and never really get to know America. They are good for covering a lot of ground in a hurry, but they tell so little about the land and the people who live on it. I drive the two-lane highways because they…

  • The Byrd Creek bridge and dam

    About ten years ago I went through a rough patch. I had overextended myself was teetering on the brink of exhaustion, and things weren’t going so well for me at home. So I took a bold step – I left my family at home, drove to Tennessee, rented a cabin in the woods, and spent a…

  • First colors of spring

    Spring is my favorite season because it brings warmth and color to end winter’s cold and gray. The original owner of my house planted a lot of bulbs in a large bed in the middle of my front yard, and the daffodils are always the first to poke out their heads. They have become my…