Wait For It

This weekend we "Fall Back" and starting Sunday morning, sunrise will be an hour earlier than this week.  June suggested we take advantage of this last week and go see a sunrise somewhere.  We decided on Wednesday afternoon to take off the next day and go to the Smokies for a day trip.  Being retired is nice that way.

It's a good idea to plan to be to the sunrise spot 30 minutes before the sunrise, which meant we had to be at the Oconaluftee Valley Overlook by 7:20.  Even with the late sunrise, we had to get up at 4 AM, eat a quick breakfast and head on down the road. The thing about sunrises is you never know what you will get when you start out.  But if you don't get up and go, you'll never get a great sunrise photo.

The Oconaluftee Valley Overlook is on the Newfound Gap Highway just south of the Newfound Gap parking area.  It's a great spot for sunrise and we found several other photographers already there when we arrived a little after 7.  As the sky started to lighten, we were disappointed to see solid clouds in all directions, from horizon to horizon.

7:35 AM

By 7:35 it really looked like we should have stayed in bed.  The sun was to come up in 15 minutes just about in the V in the mountains.  We decided to stick it out.

Right at sunrise, there was a small break in the clouds off to the south.  We could see through that small opening a little of what was happening on the other side of the clouds.

7:52 AM

That was pretty much all we saw for a while, then the clouds started to break up off to the east where the sun was hiding.  At 15 minutes after sunrise, the sun was well above the horizon by this time, but things were starting to happen.

8:07 AM

 Then it happened!  The clouds parted and the sun broke through 20 minutes after sunrise.

8:10 AM

If we had given up and headed off to find other places to shoot, we would have missed one of the best sunrises we've seen this year.  We didn't get to see the Elk at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center this trip, but we saw God's Glory in the sunrise.

8:12 AM

Sunrises and sunsets are photographer's favorites.  The drama of the of brilliant warm colors in the clouds and God beams shining down on the landscape is hard to beat.  The skies don't always cooperate and we might think it's not worth going or waiting around.  Other times we might be tempted to leave right after the sunrise or sunset. Many times I will have my tripod still set up while I watch other photographers pack up and leave. My experience says wait and see what is in store.  Don't give into temptation and leave early.  Sometimes the best part is 15 - 30 minutes after sunset, or in this case, after sunrise.

Continuing With My 2016 Favorites - Colors Of Nature

Before there were photographers or painters creating beautiful works of art, there were beautiful works of art in nature. Since the beginning of time, God has been creating beautiful art in the natural world.  Every day when the sun breaks the horizon there are brilliant sunrises happening all around the world.  We may not see it where we are that day but it is happening.  Sometimes the edge between night and day is defined by bright orange and yellows. Other times it is more pastel pinks and purples that paint the sky. Below the sky, every color can be found in the leaves, flowers, and grasses. Most of the earth is covered with water, which reflects and sometimes intensifies the colors of nature. The photos for today capture the color of nature that is all around us. Color in nature is one of my favorite subjects.

In October, June and I took a day trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see the brilliant colors that are painted across the hills and valleys each fall.  We started our day enjoying a sunrise from the Parkway near Boone NC.  While others were looking east to the rising sun, I walked up the road a bit to capture a photo of the winding parkway leading over a hill to the clouds lit by the low sun.  By looking north instead of east, I found a beautiful scene that others missed.   Nature's beauty is all around in every direction.  We just need to look around.

Blue Ridge Sunrise

Click on the images for a larger view.

From a sunrise in the mountains of North Carolina, we travel to a sunset on the shores of Lake Michigan. This photo may not appear that impressive. The sun had gone down 45 minutes earlier and the sunset colors had become more soft and soothing. The lighthouse is not an impressive structure. You might wonder why I picked this as a favorite.

I'm proud of this photo because it was made under very difficult photography conditions. It was after 10 PM and there was very little available light, which meant I had to had to push the camera to get a reasonably fast shutter speed. The shutter speed was important because the photo was taken from a moving boat without the benefit of a tripod. Too slow and everything would be blurry and the photo would have been sent to the bit-bucket. With a shutter speed of just 1/9 of a second, the lights in the distance are blurred but the people hanging out on the pier are not.  This was one of those situations where the odds were against me and I might not have bothered to take the shot.  I'm glad I did.

Lighthouse at Sunset

We're now moving into the darkest part of the night when the sky is painted by billions of stars. June and I were again out taking photos with our friend Lynn from Dallas. This time we were at Clingmans Dome in the Smoky Mountains. We had gone there for the sunset and waited around for another hour and a half for the stars to come out. Because it was still summer, the Milky Way was still visible in the sky.

Milky Way

Due to light pollution, most people in the US rarely see the Milky Way.  You have to travel to a place with a dark sky, far from city lights, with clear air.  When it's not shrouded in clouds, Clingmans Dome can be a great place to see the Milky Way.  I've gotten more interested in night sky photography and this is one of my favorite Milky Way shots.

Fall in the Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge can provide the photographer with the most brilliant colors of the year. For a few short weeks, entire mountainsides turn to gold, red, and green.

For most of the summer and fall our area suffered through an extended drought. This made the water in the Bald River low enough that we could easily walk out on rocks that are normally underwater. The low water flow also made the river surface smooth as a mirror, reflecting and intensifying the fall colors. These are unusual conditions that came together to make one of my favorite fall photos.

Bald River

Water is something I enjoy photographing.  I like mirrored reflections such as the Bald River photo above. Waterfalls are probably my favorite subject and I almost always use a slower shutter speed to make the falling water appear silky and soft. A technique I have tried a few times involves very long shutter speeds to change moving water into a fog.

Waves or Clouds

Today's final photo was taken on a beach where waves were breaking over old coral formations. This was taken well after sunrise on a bright sunny morning. With that much light, it's difficult to get the slow shutter speed I wanted. I used something called a neutral density filter to block much of that light.  It is basically sunglasses for a camera lens. With that filter and a small aperture (f/22) I was able to slow the shutter speed down to 2 1/2 seconds. This made the waves appear like clouds. It's an artsy kind of effect that I like and will try to do more of.

Those are my favorite photos of nature's colors. I have 5 more favorite photos to share.  Come back again to see the finalists.

21,016 Gifts

Recently spent a couple days with some great friends in the Smoky Mountains taking photos and enjoying each other's company.  The day before I got there they were treated to a spectacular sunrise from the Foothills Parkway.  

Sunrise by Miles Smith

You can see they were blessed by spectacular colors, light, and God Beams shooting through the clouds.  I wasn't able to be there because I couldn't take the time off from work.

The next day Mike Roberts and I went to the same spot at the same time hoping to see something just as spectacular.

As you can see, the conditions were not the same for Mike and I.  I could gripe and complain that we deserved to have conditions just as beautiful as the others.  All that griping would do is make me unhappy.

I may not have been blessed with God Beams but I have realized I was blessed to be able to open my eyes and see the new day.  That I was able to be there that weekend, have good eyesight, have a car to drive myself to the parkway, and a nice camera to take photos were blessings that I didn't even think about.  To date, I have been blessed with 21,016 sunrises that started 21,016 days, every one a gift.  

We are not promised blessings such as sunrises, We're not even promised tomorrow.   Nothing we have done or can do can earn the gift of seeing another sunrise or living another day.   Through Jesus we have been given the gift of eternal life.   None of us deserve that gift.   Jesus sacrificed to give us the gift of life.

Jim Bales Place

I've only lived long enough for 21,016 sunrises and sunsets.  The Jim Bales cabin was built in the Smokies in the late 1800's and has seen many more sunrises.  Life was hard there.  I wonder what blessings the Bales family had.  

As old as that cabin is, it's only been there a small fraction of the time since Jesus died for me.  There have been over 724,000 sunrises since Jesus sacrifice for us.

I'm thankful for each day that I can wake up, open my eyes and see.   I don't know how many more I'll have, but I'm going to enjoy every one, even the cloudy ones.

Thanks to Miles Smith for letting me use one of his beautiful photos.  I'm blessed to have such great Christian friends.

Cades Cove Methodist Church - The Living and Enduring Word

I've been slacking.  I haven't written anything about the photos in my 2015 calendar yet this year.  And February is almost gone!   As I write this our third big snow storm of the month is rapidly approaching.  I think I'm ready for March and the promise of spring.

The photo for February was taken from the pulpit of the Cades Cove Methodist Church in the Smoky Mountains National Park.   John D. McCampbell, who was a carpenter and the pastor,  built the church building in 1902 in 115 days for $115.   How's that for a church building campaign?

The building featured two front doors, a common feature of architectural feature in the 1800s, which allowed men to enter and sit on one side of the chapel and women and children on the other.  In a move that may have raised some eyebrows at the time, the Cades Cove Methodist Church permitted its congregants to sit where they pleased instead of separating the men from the women..

The church was affected greatly by the Civil War.  Divisions among the congregation during both the war and Reconstruction resulted in a church split and the formation of the Hopewell Methodist Church, which not longer stands.

Today the Cades Cove Methodist Church is visited by hundreds of people every day.  We were there on a cold early Spring day and pretty much had the church to ourselves.   With no light other than what came in through the windows, the photos required a long exposure time.  However, those long exposures meant everything outside the windows was completely washed out.  I created a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo by combining 7 different shots with exposures ranging from 0.4 seconds to 30 seconds.

I wanted the words in the Bible to be clear and even readable in the photo.   I also wanted the back of the church and the trees outside to be in focus.  To get that extreme depth of field I used a very small aperture of f/22.

All this photo needs is for the pews to be full of people in the clothes of hard working farmers from the early 20th century.  They might have been listening to a sermon on perishable vs. imperishable seed.   The Word was on that pulpit in 1902 and it's still there today.

The wide photo at the bottom of the calendar page for February is also from Cades Cove.  It was taken from the loop road looking across the cove to the mountains to the south.   You can't find a prettier place in the park.

In Search of Fog

The Smokey Mountains get their name from the blue haze that come from the streams, moist forest floor and thick vegetation that blankets to mountain sides and valleys. The Cherokee called the mountains Sha-co-na-qe, means "place of blue smoke."   You can see the smoky haze from a distance but most of the time you don't notice it when in the forest.  

Sometimes a rainstorm will create a thick fog that rolls in and seems to seep into the forest.  When the fogs rolls in many people will stay in their warm hotels or cars and not get out in it.  When I see fog I grab my camera and head out to explore.  Foggy conditions can create nice moody and ethereal feelings.  Trees can fade into the fog as the get further away from the camera.   Harsh shadows from bright sun disappear and are replaced by even soft light.   It's a great time to photograph.

When June and I spent last weekend in the Smokies we had plans to hike most days.   It was cold, rainy and we forgot to bring our rain gear so instead of hiking we explored close to the car.  When it rained most of the last night we were treated to fog blanketing into the mountains the next morning.   We started at a lower elevation and chased the fog as it lifted up the mountain sides.   Our first stop was the creek at the Chimneys Picnic Area.  By the time we got down to the stream the fog had lifted.  Back into the car and chasing the fog up the road to higher and higher elevations.  When we reached the Newfound Gap Overlook there was a nice wispy fog blowing in and around the trees.

Trees in Fog from Newfound Gap Overlook

Bare trees in the fog are interesting but what I was looking for was a shot from down in the trees with fog all around.  I found what I was looking for just a short hike up from the parking lot.

Appalachian Trail at Newfound Gap

The further up the trail you look the more the trees fade into the fog giving a feeling of traveling into the unknown.   Everything was wet and even though there was no direct light there were still reflections off the wet surfaces.   I could have used a polarizing filter in this shot which would have taken some of the glare off the wet logs on the trail. 

The fog was clearing at this high elevation and I figured my fog shots were done for the day.  Driving down the mountain back into Tennessee we ran into some of the thickest fog we have ever seen.  I was hoping to find a pull off where I could stop and get some more fog shots but the fog was so thick we couldn't see the pull offs until we were past them.   We finally found a large parking lot with a Quiet Walkway.  Thinking that we are "serious hikers" we have not tried these Quiet Walkways thinking they didn't have much to offer.  We discovered we have been missing out.  This walkway went through a nice open forest along an old stone wall and down to the Little Pigeon River.

The fog was very thick and beautiful here.

When shooting in fog your camera can be fooled by the brighter fog and under expose the shot.  Be sure to check your histogram and adjust your exposure to bring the histogram curve as close to the right edge as possible without clipping the right side.

Little Pigeon River

What a treat we had that day in and out of the fog.   Not only did we have the beautiful fog but we also found two wildflowers on this Quiet Walkway that were about to bloom.

Bloodroot

Trillium

The next time were in the park we're going to check out this Quiet Walkway and others that we have been passing up for too long.