Volume 1 Issue 1
I’ve spent years standing on sidelines, wandering around small-town Tennessee with a camera in my hand, collecting stories, photos, and observations. It finally occurred to me I needed a place to put them. Although sports is where I take the bulk of my photos, they probably will not provide a significant amount of content for this Blog. For Random Thoughts from Geee-offf I intend to stick to my thoughts on faith, photography, eating food, cooking food, and if I figure out how to talk to folks maybe a story about an interesting person or two.
How did Geee-offf come about
An unexpected benefit of the nickname comes with today’s online ordering trend. If I pull up to pick up an order and ask for Geoff Griffin’s order they look for the order then look at me funny and sometimes don’t see the order until I point out it’s Jeff but with a G. If I ask for Geee-offf’s order they find it in no time flat!!
According to my parents the only reason they can come up with for giving me the Geoff spelling rather than Jeff was that it was fashionable in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s to give your kids the same first and last initial.
I’m not sure that was a universal trend, but my Dad’s best friend had the last name McDonald and his first three kids were named Michelle, Marsha, and Melinda. My parents weren’t quite as dedicated to the trend because my brother who was born 4 years later got named Timothy.
The Geee-offf nickname didn’t come into existence until I was working my first job in a restaurant in Hendersonville when I was 16. One of my co-workers whose nickname currently escapes me saw my name written out on the schedule and just started calling me Geee-offf.
After that several other workers in the restaurant picked up on it and I just went with it. I’m still that way about it. Either Geoff or Geee-offf is alright with me.
Once I left the restaurant job Geee-offf fell out of use. Throughout my early career I worked with folks 20 and 30 years older than me and they didn’t use many funny nicknames. Once this photography thing took off. The kids started seeing my name written out and the Geee-offf’s were back.
Where did Painted Barn Media come from
The photography spark started early on for me. I would spend hours looking through our family’s box of photos. My baby photos, early school portraits and places and family we visited. The photos were proof that our family did interesting things (Alligators and Bears at the Okefenokee swamp, a Braves Game, an Astros Game at the Astrodome, the World’s Fair in Knoxville, and a trip to Epcot).
During my time in college I worked a paid internship in Oak Ridge for several semesters and eventually set aside enough money to invest in 35mm film camera with built in zoom. My sports photography journey had begun (sort of). I took photos at a few TTU Basketball Games, but I didn’t really dig in at that time to learn camera settings or photo editing.
After college there weren’t a lot of sporting events for me to photograph, but that same camera served to get photos of my kids in their early years. Once my daughter got close to her Senior year of high school my wife and I started looking into the price of Senior Photos and that was an eye opener. I quickly pointed out to my wife that for the price of Senior Photos I could purchase a pretty good digital camera that would allow me to do her senior photos myself.
With the importance of that goal I was motivated to learn how to get high quality photos with the camera I had purchased. As I was learning and getting better an idea came basically from nowhere. That idea was to attend events and take photos so parents wouldn’t have to. The Principal, Volleyball Coach, and Girls Soccer Coach at WCMS were all good friends at the time. When I presented the idea to them and they were extremely supportive.
From there Painted Barn Media has grown like a rolling snowball for 9 years.
As for the name – the actual name Painted Barn comes directly from one of my pastors, Dr. Dean Northcutt who occasionally uses the phrase “any old barn looks better painted.” It was a very small leap for me to pick up on that and use it for my photography business. Barns that are painted show that the owner pays attention to details and wishes to preserve what he has. Values that I want associated with my business.
So that’s the story behind Geee-off and Painted Barn Media. This blog will probably wander around the same way my conversations do—sports, photography, travel, faith, food, and whatever else happens to catch my attention. I know most of you are saying what conversations – you never talk. Trust me there’s always conversations going on in my head and maybe now I have an outlet for them. Pull up a chair and follow along if that sounds like your kind of thing.
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