Pic(k) of the Week: Gnarly tree in winter

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

Nature as artist;

Tree as canvas.

A winter portrait.

A January pine tree on Stone Mountain.

Stone Mountain Park: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.
16 January 2017.

Looking back through the portfolio can occasionally reveal a hidden gem, such as this painterly arboreal portrait. Well done, nine-year-younger Thomas!

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Freddie Hubbard: Karioka (composition by Kenny Dorham)
Album: Goin' Up (Label: Blue Note (recorded 1960; released 1961)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Stone Mountain summit at sunrise

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It was 'blowing a hoolie' just before sunrise on the summit of Stone Mountain, that is, cold and windy!

A minimalist 'blue hour' silhouette in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA, on 10 October 2025 at 7:20 a.m. EDT.

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Thelonius Monk: Crepuscule with Nellie
Album: Monk's Music (Label: Riverside, 1957)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Old Grist Mill in early autumn afternoon

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A restored 19th-century water-powered gristmill in Stone Mountain Park: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

Photo taken 10 October 2025.

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About the mill

The mill was originally built in 1867, operating along a creek in Fannin County in north Georgia (near the current town of Ellijay). It fell into disuse and was eventually abandoned.

In 1965, the mill was dismantled and moved to Stone Mountain Park. There, the mill and its milling equipment, including the mill house and millstones, were reassembled. Additionally, a thirteen-foot-diameter wooden overshot water-wheel and a stone millrace were replicated and put in place.
— Scenic USA.
— Stone Mountain Park.

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Photographer's Notebook

The mill is a well-loved spot in the park, easily accessible from the perimeter road. So, it took some time to capture the image without any visitors in the frame. Fortunately, I finished just as a large group of school children arrived.

The entire scene featured deep contrasts between sunlight and shadow. To capture the full range of tones, I took four separate exposures, blending them later during the editing process. Wind gusts were strong, and some of the foliage shows motion blur. C'est la da-guerre-otype!

Per Merriam-Webster, "gristmill" is one word; the park spells it as two.

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Weather Report: American Tango (Vitouš/Zawinul)
Album: Mysterious Traveler (Label: Columbia, 1974)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Beneath Stone Mountain

Trees, deciduous and evergreen, stand on a northern bank of Venable Lake, 825 feet (251 meters) beneath the granitic summit of Stone Mountain. As seen from the Cherokee Trail, a five-mile walking trail that circumnavigates the base of the mountain, in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA. 14 November 2023.

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About

1. Stone Mountain is a quartz-granite monadnock:

   an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain, typically by surviving erosion. The word 'monadnock' is a Native American term.

   — Wikipedia.




2. The transmission tower of WGTV can be seen at the summit.

   WGTV is a PBS (Public Broadcasting System) member television station licensed to Athens, Georgia, United States, a legacy of the station's early years as a service of the University of Georgia. Owned by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission (technically under the Georgia Board of Regents, along with the University System of Georgia), it is the flagship station of the statewide Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) television network, serving the Atlanta metropolitan area from a transmitter atop Stone Mountain just east of Atlanta.

   — Wikipedia.



3. There are only a few natural lakes in the state of Georgia. Venable Lake, at Stone Mountain Park, is not one of them. Created by submerging a former quarry, it is named for the past owner of the quarry, a segregationist leader of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. In fact, the summit at Stone Mountain was the site of the re-founding of the Ku Klux Klan,'commemorated' with a cross-burning, on Thanksgiving eve, 1915.

Notwithstanding its historical connection to human atrocities, the physical beauty of Stone Mountain —rising abruptly over exurban-Atlanta and home to sui generis flora— can be quite dramatic. As witnessed, above, on a crisp autumn morning.

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