I love photographing major rivers and their immediate environs. Besides the unique visuals on display (reflections, dams, bridges, boats, ferries, waterfalls), a river is a time machine, telling a story about history, settlement, industry, commerce, climate, pollution, recreation, restoration and culture. They wander and twist, sometimes still, sometimes in a torrent. Cities, towns and farms hug them and grow. They start high and end low. Their waters give life.

 

Lake Lanier ©Mark Indig
Columbus, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Atlanta, Georgia ©Mark Indig

 

The Chattahoochee is a beautiful example. It is not the widest or longest but it informs and sustains the entire region around it. It was inhabited by native peoples as far back as 1000BC. They were removed (many forcibly) by 1832. It was of considerable strategic importance during the Civil War and as a corridor for trade, navigation and transportation. It has been exploited, polluted and partially restored. Wildlife can be abundant. It is the backyard for expensive homes and power plants.

 

LaGrange, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Walter George Reservoir ©Mark Indig
Gordon, Alabama ©Mark Indig
Fort Gaines, Georgia ©Mark Indig

 

The Chattahoochee is 430 miles long, beginning in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the North Carolina border and emptying into Lake Seminole at the borders of Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Many parts have been channeled and dammed but there are also countless parks along its banks.

 

Jack’s Nob (source of the Chattahoochee) ©Mark Indig
Lake Seminile (terminus of Chattahoochee River

While photographing this project, I stayed as close to the river as possible, but also explored the  culture and human impact on the land within a couple of miles of its waters.

 

Vinings, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Roswell, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Fort Gaines, Georgia
Columbus, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Browns Bridge, Georgia ©Mark Indig
Demorest, Georgia ©Mark Indig

The Chattahoochee River’s name is derived from Creek Indian words meaning “painted rock.” It was memorialized in an 1877 poem by Sidney Lanier. The 1st stanza:

Out of the hills of Habersham, 

Down the valleys of Hall, 

I hurry amain to reach the plain, 

Run the rapid and leap the fall, 

Split at the rock and together again, 

Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 

And flee from folly on every side 

With a lover’s pain to attain the plain,

Far from the hills of Habersham,

Far from the valleys of Hall.

 

BIO:

Mark Indig was born in New York City and lives in Los Angeles. He has spent 42 years in the motion picture industry, most recently as a Studio Executive, Producer and Unit Production Manager for companies such as Disney, Miramax, Universal and Dreamworks. He has worked on films such as Body Heat, The Big Chill, Titanic, The Village, The Guardian, Tropic Thunder and the ridiculously expensive and disappointing Lone Ranger. He is a member of the Director’s Guild of America, the Location Managers Guild of America and is on the Board of Directors of FilmLA.
But it was his 15 years as a Location Manager that gave him a love of photography and a unique perspective on the landscape; learning how to tell a story about each location in a few images. He wishes every photograph he takes would be beautiful AND interesting, but if he had to choose, interesting wins.