On the James White Walking Bridge with my first digital camera - on the first day I had the camera.

It was spring, 2006 - a beautiful day. I was standing on the bridge taking pictures of downtown Knoxville when a guy walks behind me and across the bridge.

He was wearing all black leather, and had an amazing Afro that swayed in the breeze as he walked. I waited until it was almost too late to catch him, but you can still just barely see him at the end of the bridge.

It was an awesome moment for first time out with a digital camera.

The Sara Lee bread loaf on top of the Kern's Bakery building in South Knoxville is one of those Knoxville icons that everyone knows and (mostly) loves.

Being a South Knoxvillian myself, I drive by the Kerns Bakery quite often, and always enjoy the smell of freshly-baking bread coming out of the building.

At night, the sign is lit up by neon lights that border the slices of bread, and they go in sequence for each slice, bringing to mind slicing bread, making a sandwich, or - of course - bringing you attention to the idea of buying Sara Lee bread.

Personally, I don't care for Sara Lee, but I do like their sign!

This Knoxville Tennessee Pictures entry is of one of my favorite Knoxville activities -- the 3 Rivers Rambler. It's an excursion steam train that runs out of downtown Knoxville, and takes passengers to the Forks of the River Bridge in South Knoxville -- where the Holston and French Broad Rivers meet to become the Tennessee River.

It's a beautiful ride, and is one of the few opportunities in Knoxville to really feel like you're going back in time.

The cars are old passenger cars. The steam engine, Lindy, is nearly a century old. It even has a red caboose! If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend the 3 Rivers Rambler.

If you're looking for some Knoxville pics that are a little different, I'm kind of partial to the pics that are at my Knoxville Business Mom and Pop pages.

You might also enjoy the Knoxville pics in my Knoxville Music Scene page.

As my fellow-Knoxvillians know, we had a brief - make that very brief - taste of winter recently.

I've missed our old snowy winters of late, so I stepped outside and took a few evening snow pictures while the opportunity was ripe.

This is a pic of my favorite Knoxville, Tennessee snow-sprinkled yard. It doesn't matter where it is, I just like the place. :-)

From the looks of the still-black roof and snowy yard, it looks to me like they don't have much in the way of attic insulation. I bet their heating bill is a bear!

These next two pictures are of one of my favorite places to stop and take a few quick shots on the way into or from work.

I just love this place! The river and the railroad bridge, and the trees and hills around it...Nice, peaceful Knoxville waterfront location. A shame I can't afford such property!

On this particular morning, there were actually little sheets of ice all over the river. You can see them as darker spots on the water. That doesn't happen too often around here any more!

And the water was so peaceful, it was like a mirror. No boats, no birds, no fish jumping -- just the river looking for all the world like it wasn't moving at all.

It was a great Knoxville nature moment, if I do say so myself.

Speaking of which, if you're a Knoxville nature lover, and you'd like to submit some of your pics to this photo blog, I'd love to see them.

I heard about the downtown Knoxville, Tennessee McClung warehouse fires about 8 a.m. the morning after they started, and got to the scene at about 8:30.

That was 7 hours after the fire started, but as you can see, it was still going strong.

At left is a picture of 2 firefighters in a lift bucket spraying water over the 2 McClung buildings that didn't catch on fire.

I took this pic from the lot behind the warehouses on Summit Hill. It wasn't an especially cold morning, but there was a stiff breeze blowing as I took the shots, and it blew water from the hose on those of us standing there like a freezing full-force rain storm.

It made me have that much more appreciation for how difficult a fire fighter's job is.

In the picture at right, you can see several Knoxville fire fighters training their hoses on the McClung fire from the roof of an adjacent building.

I heard they sprayed several million gallons of water into the McClung buildings over the course of that and the next several days.

I took this last picture from the I-40 West onramp out of Downtown Knoxville.

This view is of the front of the warehouses, and you can see that the walls had already begun to fall in on themselves.

Not to over-dramatize our local tragedy, but the beams sticking up into the air through the smoke, flames and rubble really reminded me of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.

There were several fire fighters harmed during the efforts to stop the McClung warehouse fires, and the cause of the fires is still under investigation.

My good friend Charles Brown-Roberts, who has left Knoxville for the golden sunshine of California, took these pictures while back for a visit and shared them with me before he left.

I'm a Maryville College man myself. But I have to say: I like the architecture of the main UT Library, as well as the way the terraced lawn goes with it.

He was in town for a software conference that was held at the Knoxville Convention Center, so he had a chance to take this nice picture of the grounds by the Center as they face our famous
1982 World's Fair Sunsphere.

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to look at the Sunsphere and not think of the Simpsons episode where Bart takes a joy ride to Knoxville and winds up knocking over the "Wigsphere". But crazy, unused landmark or not, I love this picture!

There was an exhibit at the Emporium Gallery at Gay Street and Jackson recently that allowed people to write notes on Sunsphere-shaped pieces of paper regarding their ideas for the future of our beloved giant golden golf ball.

You've gotta love artist types; many of the notes shared a perspective that I won't repeat in polite company! But it is a question worth asking:

What do you think we should do with the Sunsphere?

This series of pictures was taken at a boat ramp off of Old Knoxville Pike. I pass by it on the way to work and back every day, and occasionally I stop to snap a few photos.

These were all taken on the same day. The first photograph was a morning shot. Notice how calm the water is? I love this place...it's so peaceful just to stop and look.

The second photo was on the way home from work at about 8 p.m. Just when I was about to snap this picture, a bass boat shot by -- as you can see, in an S-curve.

I was cursing their unknown names at first, then I realized that I liked the S in the water. And now, this is one of my favorite pictures from that day. You have to love it when things turn out that way. ;-)

The last photo from this series is of a couple ducks I saw in the Taco Bell parking lot that day. They were just hanging out in a handicap parking space. I was in the drivethrough line, and jumped out of my car to get a few quick photos of them.

Who knew ducks like Taco Hell? I thought it was just chihuahuas!

These pictures of Knoxville, Tennessee were taken from the James White Parkway South Knoxville Bridge at sunset in June of '06.

I've had a nice film camera for several years, and enjoyed photography. But I recently got a Cannon ProShot1 digital camera, and have fallen in love with taking pictures of Knoxville!

This view is one of many things that are exceptionally nice about living in South Knoxville, along with affordable houses, nice older neighborhoods with big trees and it's only a couple minutes from Downtown.

From this close-up you can get a better sense of the fairly new condos that have been built on the Tennessee next to downtown. Not a bad location, eh?

Though it's a little dark, you can also see the Sunsphere in the background middle, behind the federal courthouse tower.

The large brick building on the left-hand side of the picture is the Andrew Johnson building, formerly the Andrew Johnson Hotel, where many famous people once stayed, including Hank Williams Senior, who was last seen alive at the AJ.