In Part 1, we were southwest of the proper city of Duluth at the Southeastern Railway Museum. This time, we’re in the town center.
Eastern Continental Divide Obelisk, (Across from) 3550 W. Lawrenceville St.
I have to admit: I had forgotten about the regional continental divides. In a nutshell, it’s the line that marks where waters flow — east and south go to the Atlantic, while west and north go to the Gulf of Mexico. (We all think of the one in the Rockies, sure, but they’re more of ’em!)
Buildings Overlooking Main Street Park (with Chairs) Duluth Town GreenDuluth City Hall #1 (with Town Green Fountain), 3167 Main St.
All of these photographs were taken on or near the lovely Town Green. Duluth may have a car-centric culture — it is a suburb of the perpetually-traffic-jammed Atlanta — but its downtown has ample opportunities to park the car and just walk around.
LA Burger #1 (Sign), 3151 Main St.LA Burger #4 (Screen Detail), 3151 Main St.Truck & Tap (Sign #2), 3137 Main St.
Aside from the various city structures (including the Festival Hall at the top of the post), there’s a huge library and a bunch of restaurants — several of which have been bookmarked for a later visit. There’s also this brand-new tribute to the city’s railroad past, named after former a former mayor:
Nancy Harris Pavilion #2 (Crossing Lights), 3178 Main St.Nancy Harris Pavilion #3 (Roof and Light Detail), 3178 Main St.
An enjoyable visit. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to enjoy a couple of days in the area, camera in-hand.
On a side note, the Duluth gallery — and the one from Johns Creek — have featured a new lens: a manual-focus, solidly-cheep=and-cheerful item from Chinese brand 7Artisans. The heavy vignetting is a result of its slightly ridiculous but enormously fun aperture of f0.95 (!), which enables extreme subject isolation, but at a cost of weight and size. The lens definitely features a “look,” but one that I’m glad to have available.
The same trip that took me to Johns Creek also gave me the opportunity to spend a day in Duluth. This is the first of two posts covering that Atlanta suburb. This time: the Southeastern Railway Museum.
Duluth Depot
Atlanta foundations are, famously, as a railroad crossroads — the biggest in the Southeast — but Duluth, 30 miles to the northeast, was for a long while a rural outpost. (Atlanta’s growth has changed that.)
Georgia Railroad 1026Caboose and Box (Detail)
The Southeastern Railway Museum celebrates this strong history of railroading in the area with an interesting and varied collection of locomotives, cars of all types, and associated materials, from models to support vehicles.
Central of Georgia Passenger (#1)Georgia Building Authority Car
There’s a good selection of items from Georgia, from multiple eras. And, of course, a bunch of items from the age of steam:
Savannah & Atlanta 750Chattahoochee Valley Railroad 21 (Detail)
While I’d suggest a visit when the weather is cooler — the exhibits are, by their nature, mostly in open spaces — if you’re at all a railroad buff (or care for one), check out this enjoyable venue an easy day trip from anywhere in the greater Atlanta area. Or, combine it with a stay in Duluth or Johns Creek and explore.
NRHS Chapter Special (Sign)
36 photographs have been posted to the new Duluth gallery. The link will be posted with part two on Monday. Thank you! (Update:Posted.)
Update: I discovered after the fact that the Museum doesn’t allow professional photographers — oops. To honor their policy, I’ve turned off the option for ordering prints (and don’t make anything from the website anyway), but am leaving the post as encouragement for readers to patronize this valuable collection.
The City of Johns Creek, a suburb of Atlanta, recently opened The Boardwalk at Town Center, a 20-acre park and walking area centered around City Hall. The upgrade turned a scenic view for those that worked nearby into a vibrant park and performance venue for all. The transformation also included re-wilding a section of Johns Creek — the waterway, that is — from a man-made lake to something much more pleasant, much more natural, and something that locals and visitors alike can use and enjoy year-round.
Johns Creek City Hall #2, 11360 Lakefield Dr.
I was there at dawn and, as Georgia late-summer mornings go, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer time to wander.
Lakeside Relaxation (at Dawn), 11360 Lakefield Dr.
As part of the park’s construction, they’ve added a performance venue in front of City Hall, along with extensive landscaping and opportunities to sit lakeside.
Boardwalk Stairs, 6455 E. Johns Crossing(Walk to) 11330 Lakefield Dr. #1
The surrounding office park and shopping areas have added access to the park, as well, aiding the public’s ability to access the improved areas.
Former Lake Basin #3, 11362 Lakefield Dr.Former Lake Basin #5, 11362 Lakefield Dr.
The best area, however, is the former artificial lake basin at the southwestern end; between the raised walks and return of the waterway to nature, it’s become an valuable addition to this suburb populated mostly with busy roads, retail and planned living.
July photography in Georgia — even on a day that was “only” hot, as opposed to “scorching” or “overwhelmingly humid” — is a challenge. But yesterday’s photostroll was completely worth the effort.
Monroe Light Sign, S. Broad St.
Named after James Monroe, this north-central town is about an hour east of Atlanta; close enough to the city to be called an exurb, it has an excellent selection of amenities to choose from.
Sign to Rinse, 106 S. Broad St.Street frontages, N. Broad St.
Typical of towns of the era, it has an old-fashioned town square and 19th-century architecture everywhere you turn.
Old Monroe City Hall (Roofline Detail), 101 S. Broad St.Classic and Cast (Building Details), 124 N. Broad St.
The downtown area was well-tended — somebody did an excellent job with the flowers — and not only has chairs to savor the ice cream, but a center to appreciate the arts, as well.
Crepes A’wash, W. Washington St.Scoop a Spell, 140 N. Broad St.Monroe – Walton Center for the Arts (Building Detail), 205 S. Broad St.Monroe – Walton Center for the Arts (Garden #3), 205 S. Broad St.
I took the long way on a trip to “The A-T-L,” and enjoyed the visit very much. I hope you’ll enjoy the results.
Update 2, 30 June: I forgot to mention that I’ve reformatted all of the posts for 2026 to match the new style. Posts from 2025 and earlier will have mismatched pullquotes, among other minor items — but the content is unchanged.
Update, 30 June: Fingers crossed, things seem to be working. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you run across anything. Thanks.
Update, 29 June:I broke something yesterday. The images on some posts from 2026 have been disconnected, and I’m not sure why. Posts from 2025 and earlier, and a couple from 2026, are displaying correctly. Working on it. Fixed.
Update, 28 June:The search results return mostly non-clickable results. Hmph. Will fix as soon as I have a moment. Fixed.
Original Post: It’s one of those things: something needs work, but since it’s yours — and not a clients’ — it doesn’t get done.
After a while, it starts to annoy. Still … other priorities take precedent.
But then something happens. In my case, it was the installation of WordPress 7, which caused several problems on the site. Old is one thing, but broken is another. It was time.
The itch finally got the scratch.
The New Foreword, June 2026
The site’s undergone a major reorganization, and as a result, it’s more focused. While there are static pages, visitors are directed to where the updates are posted: my blog, Foreword.
The site features completely new style sheets, which means a more flexible layout, dynamic fonts, and more. As a result, it has better compatibility with tablets and mobile devices — even if it’s still best viewed on a big screen.
The kicker: it’s based on modern code. That means it’s both faster and more private, stripping out third-party services (and their trackers), including search. The site continues to not have cookies, and does not save visitor information.1With one exception: if you use the contact form, a duplicate message is temporarily saved in case of an email hiccup.
Vetrans Super(fortress), Georgia Vetrans State Park, Cordele, Georgia, 2018
The photography sections got a bump, too. They’re now broken down into categories:
Regional Imagery, photography from selected cityscapes, rural scenes, landscapes, and architectural photographs from ten US states (plus several additional locations in the UK)
College Street, photography from colleges and universities, and
Maine Revisited, covering a ten-year span — 2008–2018 — of photography from the great State of Maine, “the way life should be.” While the book has sold out, there are hundreds of additional items to enjoy in the galleries.
And debuting this fall: Frequency Shift, which is macro, detail, and abstract photography from the world of hi-end audio.
Brick Arches, Fort McClary, Kittery Point, Maine, 2014
As often happens with a ground-up rewrite, it’s still a work in progress — there are wrinkles that’ll hopefully be smoothed out in the next few weeks, most likely including things I don’t yet know about.
Kindly let me know of anything that doesn’t work for you.
However, it’s the end of the month, and I have the dozens of saved pages, notes, and photos set aside for this month’s Beautifully Briefed that I must attend to. (That’ll be posted Tuesday.)
As always, thank you for visiting!
Top image: (Signs of) Bolingbroke, Georgia, 2018
1
With one exception: if you use the contact form, a duplicate message is temporarily saved in case of an email hiccup. ↩︎
Note: Title updated with the reorganized sorting system.
The first photostroll downtown this year involved some new gear, an extremely sharp and astonishingly compact wide-angle zoom from Sigma. I’ve wanted something wider that the 35mm-equivalent that is my daily driver for a minute now, and this absolutely fits the bill.
It also gave me an excuse to see a couple of new and updated spots in Macon:
Rosa Parks Square (Memorials and Seating), Poplar and First Sts.
First up is the refreshed completely redone Rosa Parks Square, now with extensive hardscaping, seating and more — a much needed change to one of the most important areas in the city, right next to the City Auditorium and downtown’s Hotel 45:
Rosa Parks Square (Circle), Poplar and First Sts.
Also completely new is the Otis Redding Center for the Arts, a refreshingly contemporary building with its own new landscaping and gardens:
Zelma Redding Amphitheater (with Statue), Cherry St. and First St. Ln.
It’s a pleasure to be able to get a huge amount of detail, landscape, and space into a single photograph; the wide-angle itch is well and truly sated. Better still, when asked to focus on details, it shines very brightly indeed:
Cherry Blossom Festival Decor (#1), Parish Seafood, 580 Cherry St.
It does retro well, too:
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church (Spire), 830 Poplar St.
So, ask me how I feel about this upgrade. Well, how ’bout this:
I Heart Downtown (Sculpture), Second St.
Sigma got this lens just right. Including the seven posted here, a total of 30 new photographs have been added to the Downtown Macon (2022-2026) gallery.
Note: Once you’re in the photo gallery, the new items are near the middle of the stack — look for the retro photo from this post and it’s the photos that follow. Remember that you can click on any photo to enlarge to a single photo with locations/titles and next/back controls (or run a slideshow). If you’re in a downtown Macon mood, don’t forget the 2008–2018 and 2020–2021 galleries as well. Thank you!
It’s been a while — too long, in fact — but with a completely new storage and editing system in place, it’s time to get back to taking, editing, and posting photographs from Middle Georgia and beyond.
This time, it’s the nearby city of Forsyth, specifically its historic train depot. Interestingly, Forsyth was the first city in Georgia to get passenger train service, in 1838, and the lovely station wears its years well.
Tracks and Train Depot, E. Johnston St. and Railroad Ave., Forsyth
Both the depot and its features are examined, in general and in detail:
Forsyth Train Depot (Roof and Chimneys), 104-114 E. Adams St., ForsythForsyth Train Depot (Train Car Detail #3), 104-114 E. Adams St., ForsythForsyth Train Depot (Train Car Detail #5), 104-114 E. Adams St., ForsythAntique Fire Truck (Detail #7), 104-114 E. Adams St., Forsyth
And, ever watchful:
Forsyth Train Depot (Bronze Dog Sculpture), 104-114 E. Adams St., Forsyth
This is my second try at a fall photostroll in Helen, a German-themed town in the Georgia mountains north of Athens, and I’ve got to tell you: Helen and I are not getting along.
Technically, it’s my fault. But I feel the relationship may have soured; I just might neglect to make a third attempt.
Unicoi Bridge into Helen, Georgia
In late October, 2019, I was there with an unfamiliar lens and although I took a stack of photographs, the vast majority of them were junk. I got eight — eight! — worth putting up. Again, my fault. But not at all the results I’d wanted.
This week, I was back. I had two beautiful fall days to make up the deficit.
Flags and (Brew) DecorLove Lock Bridge (Railing #1)
Day one saw 68 photographs taken with my favorite 35mm, but I could tell almost immediately that it wasn’t going the way I wanted. It was flooded with tourists — expected and okay, frankly, but not built for wider shots. “No problem,” I said to myself. I’ll enjoy some schnitzel, have a good night’s sleep, and clean up with the detail shots in the morning.
Bling Bling Blink Tourist BlindChristoff’s 76, Munich St.
Alas, not only did I get out of the wrong side of the bed, my back somehow got out of the other side — I wasn’t walking anywhere. Crap.
Bridge Lights, Main St.River Overlook, Eidelweiss St.
Worse, upon examination back in front of the big computer, I wound up with less than superlative results: only 30 of those 68 got posted.
