devil went down to georgia

Molena, Georgia to be exact

By Ellie Pritts

February 12^th, 2019

It was super bowl weekend in atlanta...

Probably not the best time for me to be there, but all the more reason to spend most of my time in the countryside an hour or so away, right? It's crazy to think that this time last year, I had never visited Atlanta and now I've been there 3+ times in the last 8 months or so. What brought me to town this time was the opening reception for a photography show I curated for SXSE Photo Gallery, a charming gallery housed in a beautifully renovated barn in rural Molena, GA. Before I headed south to Molena, I spent a few days in Atlanta taking in all the tourist sights before the bulk of the Super Bowl mania began. Of all I saw, nothing was as impressive as the Georgia Aquarium. This is the coolest aquarium I've ever been to. And I've been to a lot. My favorite exhibit was the massive whale shark habitat pictured below.

the gallery

I couldn't have been more excited when gallery owner Nancy McCrary reached out to me last year about working together. Curating a photo exhibition is something I had never been asked to do, but it so perfectly fit in with what I do in work, not just as a photographer but also in my work for Apple. When working on @apple and the #ShotOniPhone campaign, the bulk of my time was spent curating photography. It was really fun being able to pick a theme for this exhibition (Color Explorations) and I loved seeing all the submissions from across the world.

One of the things I was most excited about was simply the physical gallery itself. SXSE Photo Gallery is located in the town of Molena, GA which boasts just over 370 residents as of 2017. The gallery is a renovated barn with an upstairs apartment that Nancy generously offered to put me up in. Staying in an old barn in the middle of rural Georgia sounded like a ton of fun on its own, not to mention a reception and my jurors talk. I was sold.

great success

The "Color Explorations" reception went really well. I was pretty nervous about people not showing up because of our remote location (and the Super Bowl), but we had guests who drove from as far as New York and Indiana! I was so thrilled to meet everyone and hear their stories. Even some of the local farmers showed up. Nancy made biscuits and heavenly trays of smoked ham, cheese, grapes and all kinds of delicious goodies. It truly was a special time out there in the country.

As the reception was winding down, Nancy told me that the gallery was on about 30 acres of land that used to be minnow farms. She said if I ventured into the woods behind us, I would find scenery reminiscent of some sort of prehistoric jungle. How could I turn down an opportunity to explore?

lets get lost

A group of us decided to head out into the woods and see what we found. It was exactly as Nancy described, eerie and overgrown. We tripped over thorned vines and jumped over creeks to push on through the woods, foolishly not following any path or keeping track of our route. After awhile we spotted vibrant green in the distance, a stark contrast from the rainbow of brown hues in the rest of the forest this time of year. As we got closer I swore what I was seeing was bamboo, but that just didn't seem to make sense. Does bamboo grow naturally in rural Georgia? This looked like someone scooped up a patch of the forests I visited in Japan and plopped in down in this forest thousands of miles away. Once we arrived at the verdant oasis my suspicions were confirmed; this was a full on bamboo forest in the middle of the woods.

After exploring the bamboo for awhile, we promptly wandered off in search of the sound of water we could hear rushing by. Shortly after that, we split up and all got lost to varying degrees. This resulted in a small scale search mission to locate one photographer who hadn't made it out. Luckily we found each other pretty quickly and made it out before dark! That night I was awoken in the barn by the sound of a pack of coyotes yapping and howling in the night. I shuddered thinking about what it would be like to be lost there still.

beautiful decay

I mentioned to Nancy that I wanted to photograph old barns and houses that were being reclaimed by the earth. I really can't get enough of that stuff, and it seemed there was plenty of it around. She shared some areas that seemed particularly promising, so we went off in search of old sharecropper cabins and the oldest and longest wooden covered bridge in Georgia, the Red Oak Creek bridge.

this old house

The overcast day was perfect for being outside and shooting all the old buildings I found. I wish I had more time to explore because I know there were even more lurking down the rural side roads. One day I would love to do a whole project on old sharecropper cabins in the south.

how did i get here

I love thinking about the seemingly random yet undeniably connected reasons why I end up in certain places or working on certain projects. In this case, I ultimately owe this opportunity to the APA, American Photographic Artists. The APA offers education, community, inspiration and opportunities for networking and social engagement through local chapter activities. They, specifically the LA chapter director Desirae Lantry, came up with the idea of having me do an Instagram marketing event here. It rapidly grew to me touring the country and giving these workshops at almost all the APA chapters, including APA Atlanta last year. It was at that event that the creative wonder woman Barbara Griffin met me and went on to speak highly of me to people like Nancy, who in turn reached out to me to work together on this fun exhibition at her gallery. I am immensely grateful for each and every one of these opportunities and I can't wait to see what the next one will be.