In this solo vlog, Don Orkoskey, a nature and wildlife photographer who recently relocated from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, shares a candid rundown of his early impressions of his new city. He highlights the abundant tree canopy, diverse culinary scene (especially the multicultural Buford Highway Farmers Market), the prevalence of speed bumps, a relatively moderate traffic experience, and the city’s cultural diversity and milder winters as major positives. He also notes downsides such as relentless mosquitoes, poor indoor cell signal, and occasional traffic congestion. Don recounts odd encounters, including a man wearing a kippah with a Confederate‑flag shirt and the proximity of the controversial Stone Mountain Confederate relief, and remarks on the rapid infill development he observes. The latter part of the video is a nostalgic look back at what he misses from Pittsburgh: friends and family, Yins coffee, Frick Park, the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, Penguins hockey games, and the convenience of Sheetz/Wawa‑style convenience stores. He wraps up by encouraging viewers to visit Atlanta, promising more nature‑focused photography content in future videos.
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Hey, it's Don from WDO Photography. If you are new here, I am a nature and wildlife photographer based in Atlanta. I just moved here from Pittsburgh. This video is really to talk about the things that I've found that I really like about Atlanta, to complain a little bit about some of the things that I, that I don't like so far, to talk about some of the strange things that I've encountered here, and to talk a little bit about some of the things that I miss about Pittsburgh as well. If this is your first time, please hit that subscribe Subscribe button because I have a lot of great content on nature and wildlife photography, and I'm sure you will enjoy watching those videos. But let's get into it. Here are some things that I found that I really like about Atlanta. Number one, the amount of tree coverage is unbelievable. It really is. This is the city in the forest, and not just the city of Atlanta, but really all around The city is just forested and beautiful. That, of course, comes with some downsides, unfortunately. Number one, Atlanta's hillier than I expected, but all of these massive trees that are around, they provide amazing shade. It's absolutely lovely here, but they also, because of that ground cover, Because it's cool and moist, there are so many mosquitoes. In addition to that, despite being very close to the cell company that I use's tower, I don't have any signal in my apartment. I have to rely completely on Wi-Fi for my cell phone to work. When the internet went down, it was rough because I couldn't stay here. I had to go to a coffee shop and just make sure that I didn't miss any calls or emails or anything. I think it's a fair trade-off to have so many huge old-growth trees around, but mosquitoes love me. I don't know what it is about my blood that they can smell on me, but I, if I don't put on mosquito repellent, I will be bit up. I've become a buffet, essentially. The second thing that I found that I really love about Atlanta is the food. If you don't know, Atlanta is a place that is like over 10% foreign-born. There's so many people that have come here and brought their culture here and brought their food here. I've had amazing Ethiopian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican. I have had so much good food here in just the short period of time that I've been here. It's probably gonna make me go broke if I keep checking out all these restaurants. But it's not just restaurants. There is a place called Buford Highway Farmers Market that has food from everywhere. My wife is an immigrant and she was born in Russia. She, you know, had some, some places that we could shop in Pittsburgh for food that, you know, reminded her back home. There were 2 Ukrainian stores that carried a lot of stuff. This place, this Beaufort Highway Farmers Market, is amazing. They have a huge selection of East European, Russian, Ukrainian. There's a whole deli and bakery. It is fabulous. And it's not just East European food. It has food from everywhere, absolutely everywhere, all around the world. And again, the restaurants are phenomenal. I'll try to put together a list in the description of places that I've checked out already and that I highly recommend. Another thing that I have found that I really like about Atlanta is that there are speed bumps on all the residential streets, practically all of them. It really makes them seem so much calm, more calm, and and inviting, it probably increases the traffic. People in Atlanta love to complain about the traffic, which on that note, I do want to say that I think it's a little bit hyped. I, I'm not saying that there's not bad traffic, but what I'm saying is that the traffic seems equal to the size of the city. So Philadelphia is roughly similar in size, and the traffic is Pretty similar. I think the big difference is Philadelphia doesn't have the space because it's, it's a much older city. It doesn't have the space that Atlanta has and has used to run these massive highways through it. But there's so many more lanes of traffic here, and that just, I think, creates more traffic because people then are incentivized to drive. Another thing that I found that I really love about Atlanta Is the diversity. So many people are foreign-born here, and Atlanta is a minority-majority city. I always say that backwards. I can't remember if it's majority-minority city or— it probably means the same thing, I guess. It means that white people are not in the majority here. It's amazing to see the diversity here in Atlanta and see things that are built for and by People for themselves and for their culture and to see them share those things with everyone else. I saw the comedian Ben Brainard, I think is his name, who said that Atlanta's not for us. I think that's a mistaken way to view things. Getting to experience the cultural diversity here and getting to celebrate with people the differences is phenomenal. There's so many aspects of the culture here locally that I have been welcomed into. Black culture, LGBTQ culture, which again, I'm not, I'm not a member of those communities. I'm not a member of an immigrant community, but the immigrant community here, different immigrant communities here, from everything I've seen, are incredibly welcoming. And I don't think that it's not for us. I think it's for everybody because that's what makes diversity awesome and great. So sorry, Ben. Something else that maybe I'm not qualified yet to comment on this because I haven't been here long enough, but that's the weather. I have really enjoyed the weather in Atlanta so far. I know I wasn't here through the worst of the summer heat, but I did experience a little bit of that. Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's humid. It's the South. It's Atlanta. It's going to be like that, right? As somebody who is getting older and doesn't want to shovel snow, I'm really happy to not need to shovel snow this winter. Now I want to also talk about some things that I have found really strange or surprising, I guess. Number one, having visited cities in the South before, you get that feeling of being in the South. Places like Savannah, which I love, um, you know you're in the South, right? Yeah. I have visited Hilton Head and And Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach, and I get that some of those places, Virginia Beach especially being the Redneck Riviera, really have this Southern thing down. But honestly, other than the fact that I'm called sir and my wife is called ma'am, it really— Atlanta just feels like a major city. The LGBTQ community here is really strong and vibrant and out. The politics in the city obviously are very different than surrounding areas. It doesn't feel like the South so much in Atlanta as it just feels like being in another major city. On the topic of strange things or unusual things, I saw a man, Jewish man, wearing a kippah, a yarmulke, and also a Confederate flag T-shirt. Now, it wasn't the entire t-shirt wasn't a Confederate flag. It looked like one of those you've been somewhere and you bought this t-shirt kind of situations. I don't know. Maybe again, I didn't see. I didn't get a chance to read what was on the shirt. So maybe it's one of those situations where you know it's for some place that he really enjoys and also caters to. I don't. I really. I don't know. I want to find this man and I want to ask him about his t-shirt because again, it's. It's probably the strangest thing that I've seen since I've been here. And speaking of Confederate things, I didn't realize how close Stone Mountain was to Atlanta. Stone Mountain, if you're not familiar, is this rock that just sticks up out of the surrounding landscape. It's, it's absolutely gorgeous, and it's been marred by a Confederate sculpture, relief sculpture, that it just It looks silly, honestly. It's tiny on the side of this rock. It's ridiculous because, again, the Confederacy was itself ridiculous and very short-lived, and it's wild that— I get it, I'm in the South, I'm in Georgia, I understand that. But yeah, it just, it's very weird that it's about a 30-minute drive for me. I'm on the eastern side of the city. I'm technically like just outside of the city. Yeah, the fact that it's there and it has this ugly carving surrounded by roads that are named for traitors, it's just, it's very strange as somebody from above the Mason-Dixon line. Another thing that I find interesting in a very good way is the amount of infill development that I see here. You can drive down a lot of these In secondary roads, you'll see where there's an empty lot that they're building a house in. I know there's probably big development out in the suburbs where they're building tract homes and stuff like that as well. The amount of infill was something that I think really surprised me because you don't really see that very much in Pittsburgh. Finally, I'd like to talk about the things that I really miss about Pittsburgh. Number one is the people, right? So I miss my friends and family that I could see much more easily. That said, I've met a lot of amazing people here in Atlanta, and I'm super pumped to meet even more. I want to say also that I miss yins, and I don't mean yins as in you all, yins. I mean yins coffee because I have not found a place here that is my Yin's type of place. The people really are what make the difference there. It really, I think it's a special chain. I know it's a small chain. I have a really hard time finding like a decent chai latte. I also, I really miss specifically Frick Park and the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. There are so many amazing parks, and again, Atlanta is just covered in trees. Despite that, Frick was right outside my door for about 5 years, maybe a little bit longer than that. The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is somewhere that I taught at, and I loved to visit and walk the grounds of as much as possible. Huge shout-out to their education department, to Mark, And everyone there, really. I loved working with those folks. And again, it's just such a beautiful place to visit. I loved visiting there. I am finding some amazing places here, and the Atlanta Botanic Garden is amazing, but I still miss Pittsburgh Botanic Garden and Frick Park. Another thing that I really miss is the Pittsburgh Penguins, going to their games specifically. There's just something special about those games In fact, my sister just went to Marc-André Fleury's final preseason game that he played with the Pens. That had to have been so special. I really wish I could have been there. I really miss being at the arena and seeing them play. I love hockey, and seeing live hockey is incredible. Another thing that I miss, and this is gonna sound so silly, the day that I moved in, we hired some folks to help us unload the truck, and one of the guys, He has family in Pittsburgh and he said to me, you're really gonna miss Sheetz. I was like, yeah, okay. He said, there's nothing like Sheetz or Wawa down here. He said, the closest thing we have is called QuikTrip and he said, they're all over the place and they have some like prepared food and stuff like that, but it doesn't compare. And he's right, it doesn't. I didn't expect to miss Sheetz and I don't wanna get into a whole Sheetz versus Wawa thing. In fact, I would happily take a Wawa. If you're with Sheetz or you're with Wawa, Atlanta, that should be your next market. I'm telling you. With that, I think I'll end it there. I'll just say I'm really excited to keep exploring Atlanta. It's an amazing town. I'm having a wonderful time here. If you get a chance to visit, I highly encourage it. If you're still watching this video at this point, then thank you. Be sure to check out my other videos, which are more on nature and wildlife and photography. I promise that. I'm going to be working on some more nature and wildlife videos, and you'll see some stuff from me soon. So until next time, thank you so much for watching. I appreciate you being here, and I'll see you next time. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Bye.
