Anniversary Trekking in Ashe County

January 08-12, 2016

This is my first Trek of the new year, and I was able to do it side by side with Toni as we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.  Each year we head out to Lansing, NC to stay at our favorite little cabin in the woods.  If time allows, we also typically go out and explore in the area, and if I'm lucky, I find a few subjects to put in front of my camera.  This year wasn't any different, but the weather refused to really cooperate with us when it came time to trip the shutter.

It seemed that daily, the weather forecast would change, and that pretty much left us with no idea what to expect for the long weekend.  We got in after dark on the eighth, and we relaxed in the cabin until the next afternoon when we struck out to see what was out there.  I thought that I had explored most of the directions away from the cabin, but that wasn't the case.  We found a lot of new roads very close by and started scouting.  The lighting was very good with heavily overcast skies.  The down side to that was that the clouds were bringing in rain which would come and go.  We found a lot of different subjects, but with the rain, there was little that could be done, and the sky needed some visual interest for these subjects to work.  After a couple of hours out scouting, it was clear that this was not going to be the day for the camera.  We grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to the cabin.

The next day was a little more of the same with heavily overcast skies, but instead of rain, there were snow flurries.  The biggest part of the weather story was the 20-40 mph winds that were supposed to be around all day long.  Normally, I wouldn't head out in that kind of wind, but I really wanted to get some pictures, and I was excited about all that we had seen yesterday.  Once we left the cabin, my excitement dwindled as the wind chill was in the single digits.  This was not going to be fun.

Days Gone By

The wind was shaking my truck as we curved through the mountain roads.  We made some new turns along the way and saw a lot of other really outstanding barns, but for one reason or another, they all seemed to be plopped right next to modern houses, or other visual distractions.  I was coming up with nothing as we drove around, until we crested a hill and made a slight turn.  Toni and I both saw it at the same time and saw that it was isolated well enough for a photo attempt.  The biggest issues I had with this particular barn was that there was a house across the street with a few cars in the driveway.  It was far enough removed that it wouldn't bother the barn, but I really wanted to incorporate the roadway as a leading line in this composition.

I got out of the truck and started to set my camera up in a shelter next to a graveyard in an attempt to get out of the wind.  It only marginally worked, and I had a very hard time putting things together with the gusts.  I was able to get everything mounted and I started working my way down the road grabbing different compositions as I walked.  Within minutes, I could no longer feel my fingers, and my nose was pretty much running non-stop at this point.  I continued to dial in the exposure settings on the camera the best I could, and tried to time the shutter releases between gusts to get the sharpest images possible.  My favorite composition from this location was one that incorporated an old house in the background just to the side of a second leading line.  All of the elements were there to pull the viewer into the scene.  As I got closer, I lost a lot of the depth to the image.

I tried a couple of other subjects in this area as well, but I was just unable to make them work, partially because I was starting to suffer from frost bite.  The other reason, I wasn't able to mount any other filters on my lens because I needed the hood to keep the snow flakes off of the front element.  Knowing that I was getting very close to losing all fine motor skills I went back to the shelter and broke down the camera and tripod.  That was a trick and a half considering my fingers no longer worked beyond about 50%.  Once back in the truck, my fingers were stinging as the blood started to occupy them once again.

Rust and Splinters

After I regained the feeling in my fingers, I was once again on the hunt for a photograph.  I had grabbed the official first shots of 2016, and I was hungry for more.  The snow was getting heavier, but the wind was seeming to die down a little, or maybe it was just on the other side of the mountain.  Either way, I was feeling better about being outside of the truck with the camera.  I was doing my best to get us as lost as possible in the back country roads of Ashe County.  We were well into farm lands, and there were so many barns out there I was getting overloaded.  I decided that I could be picky about what I was shooting at this point because there were so many worthwhile subjects along the roads.

This next stop is a prime example of why I love having Toni's company on these motorized Treks.  As I was navigating a new traffic pattern as a bridge was being repaired, my attention was right on the road (where it should be).  However, Toni was free to look around and she got excited when she saw a barn to our right.  I turned just in time to get a quick glimpse of it.  I wasn't able to see detail, so I filled in my visual blanks with questions to Toni.  Everything sounded wonderful about this barn, so we got turned around.  There was not much in the way of shoulder to pull off on, but there was enough room between the orange barrels that I was able to get safely out of the roadway, and in a position to work the barn.  This was now my first time seeing it, and I have to say, Toni picked out a perfect location!

I was still contending with snow, but the wind was not nearly as bothersome as it had been.  Between the roadway and the barbed wire fence, I was restricted in my possible shooting locations, which affected my compositions and my lens choice.  Due to the distance, I was happy leaving my 24-70mm lens in place and found that to be the perfect range for this subject.  Using only my polarizer filter, I was able to keep the lens hood on to protect the glass from the falling snow.

I started with the basic full on 3/4 shot that we had seen from the road.  This worked out very nicely because there was a skeletal tree to the left, and a small shed to the left of the tree.  These three elements worked together almost seamlessly to form the above composition.  The textures in the wood, trees, and the tin roof with rust told the story of hard use, and rugged conditions.  I was almost happy with this composition, but decided that since I could still feel my fingers, I would keep going and see what else I could work with.

The Dilapidated Duo

I had noticed another barn that was rather...well...blah to the far left of the barn I had been photographing.  As I walked to the left, I started to see some potential in that barn.  While it wasn't strong enough to be a primary subject, it seemed to complete the story of the larger barn.  The surrounding trees helped to minimize the impact of the second barn, and also help to push the eyes to the centerpiece of the image.  There was another bare tree to the right which then framed the larger barn, and kept the eyes from leaving the scene.  Yeah, this composition would work out nicely!

It took but a few moments to get the camera positioned right.  Everything just fell into place, and even though my primary focus of the scene was in the background, the trees along the foreground bring your eyes right to it.  Something that rarely happens in Winter was also happening in this shot.  There were a lot of green trees in the distant background which was very beneficial considering my main subjects were all more or less natural wood colored.  The difference in colors really helped to bring a visual separation to the elements.

Little Secrets

While I was working that composition, I happened to look at a little small shed off to the side.  I had seen it before, but it hadn't really captured my attention at the time.  It was still not something that I wanted to photograph, but from this particular angle, the tree that it was sitting under was magnificent.  Before moving from this location, I flipped the camera on its side and twisted the polarizer a tad in an attempt to capture what I was seeing.  The composition fell into place without even a hesitation.  The tree added visual importance to the shed, and the shed added visual importance to the tree.  The added contrast from the polarizer gave the tree just enough oomph to stand out from the trees in the background I thought.  This one shot was all I felt I needed, and I thought that I had nailed it.

After I shot this one frame, I picked up the camera and started to move to a different location to try another angle on the big barn.  As I passed the truck, Toni caught my attention and suggested that I do something with the little shed.  It doesn't happen often, but I got to tell her I had already seen it and shot it.  Normally, we are drawn to slightly different subjects.  That's why I like having her with me.  She will point out things that work very well, that I might miss from time to time.  This time, I just beat her to it.


Side note...

As much as I liked this image in the field, and on the LCD, I knew it was going to take a bit of massaging to make it work in a print.  The tree that caught my eye was thicker and visually heavier than the competing trees to the rear.  However, I was going to have to work with the tones of the image in order to get it to really stand out.  There were not much colors to work with, so it was all going to be lighting, shadow and highlight.  I worked up the color image and felt that I had a very strong image in front of me.  When I made up the proof print, my thoughts were confirmed, yet there was something that was missing.

Little Secrets in B&W

Knowing that I had processed the image with a concentration on light and dark, I figured that what was missing was a lack of color.  When I made the monochrome conversion, I liked what I saw, but it wasn't all that different.  I discarded the idea for a little while and then came back to it.  I made some custom tweaks to the green and red filters after the conversion, and then fine tuned the contrast once again.  When I printed out the proof, the final image was exactly what I had envisioned at the time of capture, I just didn't know that I was seeing it in black and white.  My initial reaction from the weekend was that this was my favorite image of all that I shot.

Back to the story...

Things were going great, and the weather was getting a little bit better.  However, it was starting to get late, and we were needing to wrap things up.  Admittedly, I took the scenic route back into town, but I saw nothing else that caught my eye.  I had managed to work two different scenes and felt really good about what I had captured.  I had shot less than 30 frames and was excited about pretty much all of them.

The next day, and our final full day, Toni and I headed back out once again to see what else we could find to photograph.  I was out looking for some old iron as that was what I was really wanting to photograph.  Unfortunately, we found nothing at all that caught our eyes.  We went into Boone and had our anniversary dinner before heading back to the cabin.  On the way back, I was thinking about anything that I could try in the night hours before we got back to the cabin.  I got this wild idea to try an old tobacco farm I had photographed a couple of years ago which I thought had at least one street light in the middle of the property.  It was kind of on the way back to the cabin, so we decided to give it a go.

The Mountain Man Can

This farm is unlike anything that I have ever seen before.  It is set up on the side of a pretty steep hill, and has structures from many different generations.  I'm not sure about currently, but in 2013, there was still a resident in the house to the lower left who had worked this farm since he was a kid.  I had so much fun photographing this farm in the daylight, and I was really looking forward to seeing how it played out at night time.

When we arrived, I immediately saw it from the road which was a great sign.  Not only was there one light, but there were two within the property.  This provided a lot of great lighting to the scene, and allowed me the ability to photograph it in the pitch black of night without the need for additional lighting.  Since I was going to be a good bit further away than I was last time, I mounted my 70-200mm lens for that added reach and compression.  There was no need for any filters, but I did use my lens hood to block the element from the street light I was standing under.  This lens worked out perfect for the scene.

My biggest problem was that the street lights had to be part of the composition due to the pitch of the property.  That lead to really bad lens flare along the lower left corner of the image.  The lights were also mismatched being both tungsten and white fluorescent.  The two different color casts really didn't work well for the scene unfortunately.  I shot this with the intention of converting to a monochrome image, knowing that to be the best way to deal with the color temperatures.

The scene had a total range of lighting as well.  There were the lights which were easily blown out, and then there were dark shadows.  It was difficult to get a good exposure using the light meter, so I decided to wing it.  I set the camera to bulb mode, and dialed in a medium aperture for full depth of field.  I then tried a 1.5 minute exposure and followed up with a full 2 minutes when I saw that things were still a bit dark.  On my second attempt, I found the right exposure for the image which was pretty impressive since my last long exposure shot was a couple of years ago.

I only took four frames as I was starting to get too cold to function once again.  There wasn't much I could do with the composition either unless I tried to make contact with the owner to get permission to get onto the property once again.  It was too late for that, so I decided to pack it up and head in for the night.  Ironically, I thought that this particular scene would require the most work due to the lighting issues, but the processing went surprisingly fast.  I was able to crop most of the lens flare out from the bottom (by design) and was able to clone out the rest without having to work within any structure.  The monochrome conversion went very smoothly as well, and I was able to retain much more of the shadow detail than I had suspected.  I'm not sure how much I like the image, but it does have merit.  More importantly, I'm happy that my off the wall concept actually worked out so easily.

The tobacco farm was my last image from the weekend as we had to head home the next day.  There might not have been a huge amount of pictures created over the long weekend, but I have to say, what I did capture, I'm very pleased with.  Of 32 exposed frames, I am looking at six proofs on my desk.  That is about a 20% keeper percentage which is pretty darn good.  The vast majority of the pictures I owe to Toni's eye though.  She is really great at spotting subjects, and most of the time, I can translate her vision into a working composition.  I'm just really happy that she can join me on these Treks!

An Anniversary Getaway

January 18-22, 2014

This was a very productive trek that wasn't even designed as a trek.  Every year Toni and I celebrate our anniversary by going to the mountains and staying in a cabin just like we did for our honeymoon in 2011.  This was our third anniversary, and now the second time that we stayed at this cozy little cabin just outside of West Jefferson, NC.  An interesting factoid, in the years that we have been married, I was only an active photographer for the first year.  I did a little photography on our honeymoon, but for the anniversaries that followed, I wasn't interested in photography in the least.  Fast forward to this year....with my photography entering back into our lives, Toni suggested that I bring along the camera for this trip.  While that wasn't going to be my main focus, I could hardly disagree with the logic.  It was going to be like old times again!

I figured that we would get out and do a little bit with the camera, but I wasn't really expecting much in the way of trekking on this trip.  Plus, I was a lens down since my 70-200mm telephoto was still at Canon being worked on.  It actually was being shipped back while we were gone, and arrived at the house a couple of days before our return.  Without that lens, I was restricted to only two lenses, which fortunately were my two most used lenses for landscape work.  I took everything and figured if I could get a picture or two I would see that as gravy on what was sure to be a most enjoyable trip with Toni.

The weather forecast was all over the place for our stay there.  We were looking at clear days, cloudy days, cold days, REALLY cold days, and some snow days to boot.  This should be exciting!  We arrived at our secluded cabin right on time on Saturday the 18th.  We got in and got settled in for the afternoon and evening.  I wasn't really thinking much about photography, but had noticed that there was snow on the ground, and being located in Winston Salem, I knew that snow pictures were few and far between  for me normally.  I figured that my best bet would be to get up early in the morning and do some exploring on foot around the neighborhood which was far from developed.


Sunday, January 19, 2014

The alarm rang very early, and I just wasn't quite ready to get up.  The dark sky looked totally overcast which was going to kill my only idea for a photograph (a shot looking up at the cabin from the road below).  I decided to roll over and go back to sleep.  That was an easy decision since Toni wasn't interested in going out in the snow with me that early in the morning.  Try as I might, I was not able to get back to sleep, so I went ahead and got up to go explore a little bit.

Freshly Fallen

I was having a hard time finding anything that really excited me photographically.  My idea for the cabin shot wasn't going to work as I had intended.  I was left with no clear idea of what to work on.  I just walked aimlessly up the road and looked at the different vacant lots.  In one of them, along the driveway, I found a nice little rock sticking out from the snow.  There was a fairly fresh red leaf right next to it as well.  The driveway had a nice leading line, and I could see the sky which had some clouds in it.  This was starting to develop into a composition.  I quickly got the camera set up with my 24-70mm lens.  I added a color intensifying polarizer as well as a 2-Stop soft edge ND-Grad filter to control the sky.  I'm not sure why, but the white balance in the camera was having a hard time resolving the light.  It was showing a very blue color cast in the LCD.  Figuring that it was just cold, I snapped away, knowing what I was seeing in front of me, and knowing that since I shoot RAW I could adjust the white balance later to more accurately show what I was seeing.

It wasn't until I got home and started to fine tune the white balance that I was able to see the image as I remembered it.  The color intensifying polarizer did exactly what I wanted it to do.  The sky now popped with warm tones against a blue background.  Thanks to the graduated ND filter, the snow was still properly exposed, and what I had captured was actually the tail end of a colorful sunrise which was ever so faint in the sky at the time of capture.

I continued to walk around for a bit and found a handful of other subjects to capture.  They were not all that exciting though, and ultimately they got cut and left in the recycle bin on the computer.  I was having a hard time getting inspired.  After about an hour, I headed back to the cabin.  Before I went inside though, I walked around to see what views I had from the deck.  While they were not my customary views, I did see some moderate potential, and for the moment, the sky was looking pretty good.

Bird's Eye View

I managed to pick out a relatively tall tree to use as an anchor and counter balance to a distant mountain and open range on another hill.  I was able to set up the shot without switching lenses.  The lighting was pretty good and did not require the ND-Grad, only the color intensifying polarizer.  It took a few frames to find a composition I could live with, but I think the vertical orientation suits this scene quite well.  I was very lucky that the trees still had some red leaves which added a nice warm touch to an otherwise cool image.  Because of those tones, I was able to have a well balanced image.

With those images taken, it was time to get back in the cabin and warm up.  I had shot quite a bit of "film" for my short walk.  I knew that most of it would be throw away images, but I was pretty happy that I was able to get out and give it a try.  I figured that was going to be it for the day, and was ready to settle down to enjoy some relaxation time with Toni.

While we ate breakfast she suggested that we go out for a little while and see what was around us.  Her main reason was a little more utilitarian than that though...she had run out of Chap Stick and needed to get some more (it was an emergency!).  She pushed me to take my camera gear and I reluctantly agreed with her.  I figured we might run into something interesting, and I would hate to miss out on a good picture.

Solidarity

After we replenished her Chap Stick supply, we started out on a Sunday drive with an unknown destination.  We drove for miles and miles it seemed.  The lighting was not all that great, but I was enjoying the mountain scenery as was Toni.  I was dead set on finding some old barns or old cars to photograph, but she was wanting some more landscapes since I haven't been doing many of those lately.  I was looking for those as well, but tend to enjoy them more after Spring hits.  However, I have learned to trust that little voice that sits to the side of me in the truck, and she was feeling landscapes today.  As we were driving down a winding road she spotted a rock and pointed it out to me.  I was in the middle of a tight curve and couldn't see it, but figured that she might have something.  I knew I wasn't coming up with anything interesting!  I turned around, and found the rock.  I could see some potential in it, but wasn't convinced.  I got out of the truck anyway and walked over to it.  The wind was howling....the gusts were about 20-30mph, and with the wind chill it was feeling like single digits.  Oh well, we were out here now, and Toni wanted landscapes.

Solidarity in B&W

 After getting the camera set up, and before my fingers went completely numb, the clouds started to do some very interesting things.  I quickly set up several different compositions that showcased the rock that had caught her eye.  What I was seeing was some very deep blue in the sky with some expansive clouds full of texture.  This was going to work out!  I still had my color intensifying polarizer attached, and was not able to add any other filters because quite frankly, my fingers were not working very well at all.  Fortunately, the exposure was well within the latitude of the camera and I was able to capture some nice tonal ranges.  In fact, there was so much tonality in some of the images that I was able to render my favorite in black and white as well as color!

A Gentle Breeze

The wind was still howling, and I could not feel my arms, hands, or feet at this point.  However, I wasn't convinced that I had captured everything that there was to capture.  I was very happy that I had listened to Toni and stopped at this rock.  I was starting to feel its potential as the sky moved around it, and I was able to work on different shooting positions.  I found another angle that gave the rock some nice front light with some very tall trees in the background.  The sky was still primarily blue in that direction with some puffy clouds.  It was worth a few exposures I figured.  As I was setting up, the sun came out and bathed the foreground in a nice warm tone (thanks to the Singh Ray polarizer).  I quickly finalized the shot and released the shutter.  I got the moment that I was after, and it was a fleeting moment to be sure!

After that composition, I decided to call it quits.  I pretty much numb from head to toe at that point, and was having a very hard time manipulating the camera.  I loaded everything back up and Toni and I started back towards town.  she was hungry so we stopped for lunch in Jefferson.  While we were eating, she suggested that we continue down the road that the McDonald's was on in search of more to photograph.  She is so cool, and so supportive!  We set out for an unknown destination.  I could see a lot of barns along the road, but none of them yelled out to me with the current lighting.  Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  Could it be?  Was it what I thought it was?  Is it even possible?  Yes....it was a group of old buildings along the side of the road complete with barns, homes, and a small stream!  It was cluttered, and bunched together, but the cool factor of it being on the side of a mountain was too hard to pass up.  Toni even gave it a 60% thumbs up.  I pulled into a church which was beside the driveway leading into the "compound".

Hillside Farm

Looking at the property, I couldn't imagine that anyone lived there, but just in case I didn't want to infringe on anyone's privacy so I stayed at the entrance to the driveway.  I set the camera up and started to make some images using only a polarizer with my 24-70mm lens.  After about 3 frames, I saw a man come out of the white house making his way toward me.  Hmm, I guess somebody does live there.  We introduced each other, and he gave me full permission to photograph around his property.  He told me that he had lived there all his life (he was born in 1942), and this was the family tobacco farm years ago.  He told me about who lived in the house which is up on the hill to the right, and told me about the old barn that was caving in at the top of the hill.  He even told me about the stream that floods every spring when the snow from the mountain melts.  It was a very informative conversation to say the least, but most importantly, I had free reign to photograph on the property!

Mountain Mansion

From the road, one of the most interesting parts of this property was the large house up on the hill.  You can see from the angle of the foundation just what kind of slope this farm was on.  I just couldn't get over it!  The stream was pretty much dry today, but there was a little trickle of water running down the mountain.  As an added photographic bonus, there were some very small waterfalls along its path.  I worked every composition that I could muster with the confined space I could work in.  I found it it very difficult to make simple compositions of the buildings, but was able to find some very creative ways of isolating the interesting elements that I was after.

Window to the Past

I really liked the stream that went through the property, and I tried several different compositions to make it work.  This was one that I wasn't really convinced I would like, but it turned out quite good when I saw it on the computer.  The stream is the most important part of this shot, but the window is the visual anchor.  The eye candy is the barn in the distance.  Everything really worked out well here, and the title brings it all together I think.  I tell you what, I was in hog heaven on this hill.  Even though I was having a hard time keeping my footing, and compositions were a creative exercise...I was having a blast here!

Divided We Fall

As I was working on the compositions involving the stream, it became very apparent to me how this very definitively cut the property into two halves.  Toward the back end of the property it was almost a division of home and work with the houses on the right, and the barn on the left.  The only safe crossing was courtesy of the bridge that had been built across the stream.  Of course, the title was a natural with the division in the land, and the current state of the structures.

Abandoned Project

Abandoned Project in B&W

The Reality of Time

Probably my favorite structure on the property was the old barn at the top of the property.  There were lots of little details about this one that made it stand out.  Most obviously, it was falling in on itself, while one side was still very much in tact.  If you look closely, there is a pile of timber there that appears to have been left to help shore up the weak side some time ago.  I guess that project wasn't started in time, and the side fell in.  Another little detail that caught my eye was a rock that was in close proximity to the the building.  There was even a little plant growing out of a crack in the rock that gave a nice pop of green in front of the image that I was composing.  It wasn't until after I was done editing the picture that I really figured out why I liked this shot so much.  It was all about time.  The rock is a constant through time, while the plant is fleeting.  The barn was built with longevity in mind, but age has taken its toll on the old wooden structure.  Yes, the barn was there long before the plant, but the rock existed before either, and will most likely remain long after the barn and plant have changed.

Hillside Barn in B&W

After what I think was about an hour and a half, I made my way back down the mountain and thanked the owner one last time before packing the camera up and loading it back in the truck.  It was time to head home as the light was quickly fading away.


Monday, January 20, 2014

I was tickled to say the least at what I had captured the day before.  I would have been happy if I didn't pull the camera out another time while we were in the cabin.  Monday, we had plans to go into Boone and do some shopping.  Toni suggested that I bring the camera.  I figured that it wouldn't hurt to do just that...just in case.  We made the short trip into Boone, and ultimately Blowing Rock to get some shopping done.  We had a great time, and we finished a couple of hours before sunset.  That was enough time to work on some pictures before dinner time.  I had seen a barn on the way up that I had wanted to photograph before, but had never given it a try.  The problem with this barn is that there are all sorts of buildings all around it that really make for a difficult composition unless you want to include stores, commercial buildings, or a brick house in the frame.  However, I figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a try.  I scoped it out quickly and decided that I could work a composition that included the trees in order to block some of the surrounding clutter.

Framed in B&W

I found out rather quickly that using the trees was a good idea and it helped me isolate the barn.  My main problem now was there was absolutely no character to the sky.  It was just a blah blue, but I was here, and I meant to photograph this barn.  Fortunately, the trees helped to give me a little texture to the sky which really helped my compositions.  In fact, the trees had a lot of character on their own.  While I was fighting with the barn, Toni directed my attention to a tree beside the vacant house behind me.  The sun was hitting it just right, and it was creating a nice warm silhouette against the blue sky.  I pointed my camera that way, and worked on several compositions.

Naked Surrender

 What I found was a nice and intimate shot of the tree seemed to work out the best.  A full on view was nice too, but there was no denying the impact of the close in shot.  Toni and I just loved the warm tones against the cool blue sky.  Bare trees are a natural at this time of day!!!

In the Shadows

After I was satisfied that I had the tree, I directed my attention back to the barn.  Thanks to my compositional choices with the bare tree, I was now looking at the barn in a vertical perspective.  Huh....this might just work.  I was now showcasing another tree, but not as a primary element this time.  It was a secondary foreground element for the barn that I was really wanting to be the focus of the image.  All of a sudden it all came together, even the shadows that seemed to be creeping up from the ground trying to envelope the old barn.  This was the shot that I wanted from this barn, and I don't know why I didn't see the portrait orientation before, but I'm glad that I had the vision for it now!

When the barn was done, it was time to head back to West Jefferson to get some dinner and get back to the cabin for some more relaxing.  I might have just photographed one location today, but I was pretty sure I had a few good images from my short time there.


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Toni and I awoke to what we were expecting to be a snowy day.  Instead, there was no signs of snow at all.  Oh well, we were planning on staying around the cabin anyway after a couple of days of driving around.  We had a lazy breakfast and watched some television as it was starting to flurry outside.  Before long, the snow was starting to stick and the sky was starting to do interesting things.  Still wanting to photograph the cabin we were in, I felt that this was my chance.  After we had about 2-3 inches on the ground, I grabbed my gear and went out in the driveway.  Because it was still snowing, I had to act quick since I was using a 2-stop soft edge ND-Grad filter to keep the sky at bay and show the delicate colors I was seeing.  Every second I had the camera set up, I was getting more snow falling on the filter.  I had to make a concentrated effort to keep it shielded, and to keep any snow wiped off.

Winter Getaway

I wasn't out there but about 5 minutes.  I tried several different compositions, but I settled on this one.  What I love about it is the overall cool color tones thanks to the blue sky, and white snow covering about everything.  There are two distinct pops of warm tones that balance everything out.  The cabin obviously, and the small tree with the leaves still attached bring a nice complementing element to the composition.  The framing is loose enough to allow the trees room to "grow" and breathe which gives this image a very airy feeling.  I'm really happy that I was able to get this image and continue with my tradition started on my honeymoon of photographing the cabin.  Now that I had the image I thought would work, I quickly headed back to the warmth of the cabin to let the camera dry off, and to clean up the filter.

Winter Storm Approaching

While I was thawing out, I could see that the sky was doing some really cool things on the other side of the cabin.  It was still snowing, but I figured that I owed it to myself to run outside real quick and give it a try.  I kept the camera set up like I had it, but swapped the soft edge filter for a hard edge ND-Grad.  I tried several different locations before I settled on this composition.  I think that it really describes how the weather is in the Appalachian Mountains....We went from a nice clear blue sky, to some fluffy clouds, followed by some dark gray snow clouds, all in a very short amount of time.  That is part of the fun, and frustration about living out here.  The weather is constantly changing, but that is part of personality of the region, and Toni and I embrace it!


That pretty much sums up the photographic end of my anniversary trip.  Toni and I had a great time, and we can't wait to get back there soon!  Thanks for reading all the gritty details of how my images came to be this week, and I hope that you enjoyed them!