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Showing posts from 2012

Hardscrabble: Brutal Legend, Rugged Beauty

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Herald Citizen, Cookeville, Tenn., Thursday, August 12, 1965 Denning, Charles. "Hardscrabble: Brutal Legend, Rugged Beauty." Herald Citizen[Cookeville] 12 Aug. 1965. Print. By Charles Denning Hardscrabble may not sound like the name of a fascinating scenic wonder. But it is. Through (sic) ‘hardscrabble’ is not a word in the dictionary ( 1 ), anybody in this part of the country probably has a good idea what it means, whether he is able to put it into words or not. The word has a rural flavor, suggesting rough, stony land, a tough place for a farmer to make a living. “I first saw the word in print a couple of years ago,” Robert Hawkins said. “I was on a plane trip and picked up a copy of LIFE magazine. Reading an article about Lyndon Johnson and the LBJ Ranch, the country around there was called ‘hardscabble land.’ Out of the gray past, without an orgin (sic) which can be definitely cited, the word had been applied as a name to a spot of geography not f

How I failed to Photograph Mill Creek Falls

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I have photographed many of the waterfalls within an hour’s car drive of Cookeville. One, that I shot six years ago, Mill Creek Falls, has been on my list to re-do This is the story of my attempt to photograph it. Mill Creek Falls is accessed by walking downstream of Waterloo Falls along the Spring Creek Wild and Scenic River. This region of Spring Creek has more drops than your favorite dubstep song, which may explain both why this section of stream is so popular with kayakers, as well as kayaker’s obsession with dubstep. Unfortunately, my soundtrack for the day sounded more like Yakety Sax . Unable to recruit anyone to make the trek with me, I set out alone, grabbing a few extra plastic bags for the trash I was assured to find along the way. My standard gear set for a photo hike includes: Camera - I shoot a Canon T2i, and a Pentax Optio WG-1 (currently in the shop) Tripod Tiffen ND and polarizer filters Nalgene bottle of water Given that this was going to be a creek