Georgia photo tour with Sunira Photography

Before I left for NYC, I had a chance to spend an awesome day in Athens with my wonderful friend Sunira to take some photos for her photography business. For as long as I've known Sunira, we've bonded over the outdoors and photography (in fact, we found out we both lived in the same town and were photographing the same farm park before I moved away and then met her through a mutual friend). I've always admired that she isn't afraid to get the best creative shot -- even if that means going into the deep woods or climbing over barbed wire to get it. Or doesn't mind when her subject starts to fly away ...

For years, we've talked about doing an epic photo tour of Athens, in which I'd play guide to some of my favorite parts of town, and we'd explore old Southern Gothic ruins together with our cameras. We finally were able to make it happen last spring, and here are some of those photos! We had a chance to explore some places I've captured before -- the Oconee Forest Park, the REM Murmur Trestle, the University of Georgia's north campus, and downtown Athens. We also visited a park I've never gone to before -- Hurricane Shoals Park in Jefferson. That park had a lot of opportunities -- historic buildings and cabins, as well as beautiful fields, a covered bridge and a creek.

Since I've been blogging, I've mostly taken my own photos. While I relish that kind of creative freedom, it can get lonely and scary sometimes going to locations on my own. With Sunira behind the camera, I was able to do some things on my Photography Bucket List that I would have difficulty doing solo (climbing trees, levitating in the air and balancing precariously over streams). Plus, it was great fun to share some of my favorite spots in the world and see them captured with reverence by a friend. Now that I am a few months removed from these photos and have moved away to NYC, I treasure these photos even more as mementos of my time in Athens.

Thanks so much Sunira for a wonderful time! And if you are in the Atlanta/Athens area and need a photographer for your next event(or if you're like me and just want to capture and remember How Things Are Now), I highly recommend Sunira.

Great balls of fire!

I've been wanting to put these photos up for awhile. This requires a bit of a back story.

So...since forever, I've been a huge Gone With the Wind fan. Read the book, read the sequels, memorized the movie, asked for the commemorative Barbies for Christmas, the whole shebang. It also didn't help that living near Atlanta would sometimes bring it up, with it being Margaret Mitchell's hometown.
Up until August, I had never been to the museum downtown. I know, bad me, bad fan. So as a treat, my lovely husband Jeremiah decided to finally take me!

The drive through Atlanta -- the Varsity on the left and Ga Tech on the right. (I am driving up 85 in the kind of morning that lasts all afternoon... -John Mayer, Why Georgia)



Dress: Dillard's, Purse: vintage, thrifted, Sandals: Target

Outside the house. In honor of Scarlett and her bold palette in the movie, I decided to wear my fiercest orangey-red dress. And also because it was 95 degrees outside and I didn't want to sweat.

This was the original door that I believe was used for Tara.


Costume paintings done by the costume designer -- I believe the one on the left is for Melanie, and the one on the right is Scarlett's mourning outfit she wore to the bazaar.



Sketches for Ashley's and Rhett's costumes. With the grey suit, slicked-back hair and suave stance, doesn't Rhett look like Don Draper, err, pre-Don Draper? Would modern-day Rhett Butler be a good ad man? Jon Hamm would look good in a top hat.


A sketch of Scarlett returning home to Tara after the burning of Atlanta.



There were many book covers from around the world displayed on the walls -- I thought the Italian one was beautiful.

I was most excited for this piece -- it's the painting Scarlett has of herself in her home when she's married to Rhett. It's beautiful and adds to the vanity of the character (because, really, who has a giant gaudy portrait of themselves? Well, you might say there wasn't modern photography to render these behemoths obsolete in the 1870s, and giant portraits back then were more common, un-ironic family heirlooms and a way to remember people after they were gone. And you might slay my argument by saying all that. But still, that thing seemed so huge and Citizen Kane levels of narcissistic sitting in the house. She could have at least posed with Rhett and the baby to make it a family affair).

But there was more fun to be had.
The spot of the apartment where Mitchell wrote the novel. That typewriter is a replica. A lot of things in the apartment were replicas because many of Mitchell's possessions were not saved over the years -- some were sold, thrown or given away.
Which gives me the perfect excuse to continue my hoarding -- when I am old and famous, they'll have enough fodder for a museum in my honor, haha.



Mitchell got her start as an Atlanta reporter. Here she is interviewing a bunch of Georgia Tech students. I think this photo is a bit hilarious. The tall guy on the left has a smirk on his face like he might be telling a tall tale, and Mitchell has this look that says, I'm not buying it.


Interactive time! Jeremiah takes a stab at trying to write a love letter to me on an old typewriter.

And my turn. The typewriter was mostly out of ink. Darn.

So all in all, it was a great trip. I wish there was a bit more to the whole place -- though the house features the apartment Mitchell lived in and a movie museum area, I felt there could have been more (perhaps more archival footage of Mitchell's work, props from the movie, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh cryogenically frozen --- ha. Kidding on that last one. Maybe).

Tomorrow is another day. A good philosophy to have.

- JoAnn