TAKING HIS SHOT: Capturing rural Georgia is a passion for photographer Bob Parker

ALBANY — Bob Parker likes to take in the scenery when he drives the back roads of south Georgia.

And he brings a good bit of it home with him on his camera.

“It’s a lot of fun to shoot in south Georgia,” Parker said last week. “It’s a beautiful place. The old barns and houses that are falling in, and getting knocked over in the wind, it’s good to get as many of them on film as you can.

“It is our heritage and in Georgia, the No. 1 industry is agriculture. We have such a rich rural history. I wish these people, the farmers — I know it’s their time and money — could put roofs on them sometimes, fix them up a little bit so people could still enjoy them.”

Every so often, though, Parker says he comes upon something that’s totally unexpected, like a three-legged concrete dog with a broken tail standing out in a field near a railroad crossing in Randolph County. How and why the statue got there, Parker doesn’t know. But he did know it was an image he wanted to capture.

“I was riding down the road and he was over there on the right and I said, ‘Wow, that is incredible,’” he said. “So I got out there, shot it with my RZ medium format. … The light was pretty decent, and I was able to compose several good pictures of it.”

The photo Parker took of that unusual sight won the the Back Roads of Georgia 2 contest conducted by the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Winning that award also earned his photo inclusion in the summer edition of Georgia Backroads magazine, which sponsors the contest with ABAC’s Rural Studies program.

This is the type of outdoors “shooting” that Parker says is his “thing.”

“Some people hunt, some people fish,” he said. “I like to ride the Georgia backroads and see what beautiful things are out there, and see if I can do justice to what I see and feel and make it go onto film.”

In his “day job,” Parker works in the men’s clothing department at the Albany JC Penney store. Whenever he can, however, he takes to the region’s roads.

“I go when the light’s right,” he said. “It’s my passion and my love. I love the challenge of trying to make something that’s good.”

His work gets recognized. Parker’s name has been consistently called at the annual Southwest Georgia Regional Art Show and Sale conducted by the Albany Area Arts Council. His entry this year, “A Georgia Cabin,” won second place in the photography division.

“It’s been going 18 years, and I’ve won a ribbon almost every time they have a show,” Parker said. “I’d say at least 14 out of the 18.”

While Parker has started shooting digital, he said he prefers film.

“I like film the best. I broke down and bought a digital camera,” he said. “It saves a lot of time. And that’s what the world is moving to.”

Film can be trickier, since Parker doesn’t know what he has until he develops it. That discovery portion of the process appears to be something Parker enjoys.

“It’s like shooting dice,” he said. “There’s no rhyme or reason for it. That’s what makes it so much fun.”