Long Exposure at The Old Guilford Mill

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Old Mill of Guilford

To set the scene, the Southeastern US is getting over Hurricane Michael which hit Thursday afternoon.  While we didn't get hit nearly as hard as the Panhandle of Florida, North Carolina received a great deal of rain and some very high winds during the mid afternoon hours.  My plan Thursday was to go after work to the Old Mill of Guilford to take advantage of the dramatic clouds and the extra water that should be in the stream.  Well, shortly after 4, I got word that all units were being held over to be a storm response team.  By 5 I was out answering calls.  The hurricane passed through quickly though and by the time I got out of the office the rain had stopped.  The clouds were wonderful, and the lighting was just what I was after.  I was hoping that it wasn't going to take more than an hour to deal with the extra call load.  Boy was I mistaken!  I was at work until 11pm dealing with downed trees and such.

During the time that I was out in the field, all I could think about was how great the conditions were for the composition that I had in mind of the Old Mill.  By the next day, the clouds were all gone, and I was back at work dealing with the damage.  It hit us a lot harder than I had thought while I was sitting in the office prior to it passing over Greensboro.  The forecast for the weekend was looking pretty much as expected after a major storm passes though.  That's right, it was straight sunshine all weekend long.  I wasn't going to get my clouds, and there was even a chance that I wouldn't get any photography done.

When I got home on Friday, the sky was still crystal clear and while I had a little time to go out with the camera, I really saw no need.  I decided to mow instead.  While I got the mowing done, I ended up doing it under one of the prettiest sunsets I've seen over the house.  The color was completely covering the sky from West to East.  I was a little upset that I wasn't out with the camera, but it did get me thinking that I could possibly catch some really nice sunset colors over the Old Mill instead of the clouds that I was after.  If I was really lucky, I would hit magic light and have the mill bathed in warm light while the sky was shaded in subtle hues.

I started to look at the weather predictions for Saturday and found that there was supposed to be a really good sunset, or at least the conditions were favorable for a good sunset.  Knowing that the water would still be up, I decided to give it a shot and hope that the few clouds that were forecasted would actually pick up the color.  In the meantime, I would have the chance to work on some video productions that I had been planning.

I started early on Saturday morning setting up my studio.  I had my bag set up and my video camera (cell phone) on a tripod elevated just right.  I was going to do a tour of my bag with all of the contents.  I started the recording and started my presentation.  Of course, I goofed when I started so I went and checked everything and made a few adjustments before starting to record again.  This one went great.  I was going through everything in the bag and telling the purpose behind each thing and why I had it where I did.  At the end of the production, it looked like I had been talking for about 35 minutes.  Perfect!

I went to turn off the recording and was greeted by a black screen on the phone.  I opened it up and found that the video had stopped long before I had finished, or even gotten into the good stuff.  I noted that there were some alerts that had popped up and I thought that might have stopped the recording so I put the phone in airplane mode before starting again.

Not wanting to spend another 35 minutes talking again, I decided to reduce the content and just focus on the filters that I use.  I was rolling and feeling really good about things and stopped at the 15 minute mark to check my progress on the phone.  Black screen again!  It stopped at the 5 minute mark, which was exactly where it stopped on the first one.  Now I knew that I had only 5 minutes to work with for a video.  I thought about doing one more take but this is how it would have gone.

Roll camera
Here is my bag
It is full of stuff
These are the filters
This is the camera
It is really comfortable
Cut

Not wanting to sound aggravated I opted to just put things away and try again another day.  For the rest of the morning, I took care of some things on the computer and kept an eye out for the weather at sunset.  It was promising that there were some nice puffy clouds rolling in, but the sun was too harsh to take advantage of them.  I was working out plans for what kind of compositions I would try at the mill, and even started thinking about alternate plans just in case that didn't work out.

Old Mill of Guilford in B&W

When it was about an hour and a half before sunset I looked outside.  There were some very thin clouds working their way from the West.  The East was pretty blank and that was the direction that I was going to be shooting.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a try anyway.  I arrived just about an hour before sunset, and took a view of the scene.  The banks of the stream were grown over more than I was expecting but the water was at least flowing well.  The mill was mostly in the shadows which was not really to my liking.  However, on a cloudy day, it would have worked with the sun higher in the sky as my original plan had been.  It is nice to know that the concept is valid, I'll just have to wait to get another chance to shoot it in those conditions.

Since I was here I did set the camera up.  Looking at the available compositions I opted to go with the exact one that I had previsualized a few days ago.  I positioned on the bank near the roadway, but over the culvert that took the stream under the highway.  I made sure that the tripod was stable in the moist ground and mounted the camera with my 24-70mm lens.  I was shooting water, so I added the B+W polarizer which is a slim mount and allowed me to mount my Lee filter holder in front of that.  I knew that I was going to have to pull the exposure down on the sky to make this work since I only had some very thin clouds in the sky to work with.  I started with two different ND Grads and shot with 5 total stops of light reduction.  This was working, but I wanted a different effect.  I wanted the thin clouds to move a little and give some smoothing to the sky to match the water.  I left my 3-stop Hard Edge Galen Rowell ND Grad attached and added another Singh-Ray Filter, the 10-Stop Mor Slo ND Filter.  This was what I needed to really slow the exposure down.  I figured out my exposure and shot at ISO100, f/13, at 2.5 minutes.  The resulting image looked like it had some promise with the elements that I was after being represented.

I worked on some other variations on this theme with different exposures and compositions and ultimately decided that the sky was just getting more and more boring.  I packed up and cautiously made my way back along the railing trying not to slip down the embankment.  I looked around for more compositions and more specifically, isolations.  The lighting was not good on the mill for this and I ended up not pulling the camera back out again.  I decided to leave right at sunset.  I had managed to get a total of 17 images from the evening.  It was all one angle really, so that was a lot of shots, and I was looking forward to seeing what I had to work with.  My last set of three shots was looking like the best of the bunch though and they were vertical shots.

When I got home and loaded them in the computer, those were still my favorites.  However, I really wanted to see how the two long exposures I did turned out.  These always look a little off as digital negatives, and I wanted to see just what I could do with them.  I picked my favorite of the two which happened to be the shorter exposure of the two (151 seconds vs 210 seconds).  I started to work with it and the more I developed the shot the more I really liked it.  In the end, this was my favorite shot of the day, and I didn't even bother processing the others.

When I pulled the image into Photoshop to prepare for the web, I decided to try a quick conversion to monochrome to see how I liked it.  I played with it a little bit and decided that I had a nice moody image, but something wasn't quite right about it.  I started to play around and added a blue filter to see what that would do.  It gave a slightly cool tone to the image which I really liked.  I actually liked it enough to add the monochrome shot to my keepers from the evening.  It is a little bit of a moody piece where the color one has a completely different feeling.  I think that they both say very different things and I like that about them.

It wasn't the image that I had previsualized, but I had proven to myself that the concept would work with the right conditions and I managed to pull a pretty good image out of the lackluster evening thanks to some filters on the camera.



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A Little Rust in Stokes County

Saturday, October 6, 2018

It is officially Fall here in NC according to the calendar.  The leave should be changing, there should be a certain brisk quality to the air.  I should be in the mountains photographing the leaves somewhere around 4000 feet.  The reality here is that we are still having ninety degree days, the trees are still green, and there is no telling when Summer will actually end.  This is really messing with my head as I was getting into the Fall mood in the closing days of September.  When it came to deciding where to travel for pictures, it should have been an automatic answer of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It was not going to be quite that easy to decide.

I really didn't want to dedicate a full day to traveling to the mountains for more green.  The rainfall has been minimal, so waterfalls weren't really an option either.  Fortunately, I have been getting back into my mode of shooting old cars and trucks.  That gave me a viable option.  I also had some new locations that I wanted to try out as well.  These are two places that I have seen before and filed away in my mind for when the conditions were right.  In both cases, I wanted overcast skies and a low sun.

Come Friday, I had not really had any time to think about what or where I was going to be shooting.  I had no idea what the weather was going to be, and just didn't have the gumption to really go out at all.  I guess this is what happens when the week has some unexpected ups and downs along with considering a complete rework of my website.  Not to mention, I am starting to really put a lot of thought into where I could do a workshop for a small group of photographers.  My mind was pretty much fried.

Inspection Due

As I was getting ready for bed I checked the weather and it showed cloudy conditions to start the day, but partly cloudy fairly early in the morning.  It would likely be a good landscape day, but I just didn't want to photograph any more green landscapes right now.  There weren't going to be enough clouds to do what I was wanting to do with the old cars that I had found.  More than likely, I was going to be out of luck on Saturday and would just stay home.  I wasn't arguing with that one bit actually.  I did have Toni wake me up before she left for work so that I could check the weather one more time.

A quarter of five in the morning happens all too quickly on a Saturday morning, but such is the life of a photographer.  She woke me up and I checked the weather.  It was looking pretty much the same as it was showing the previous night.  I rolled over and went back to sleep.  I figured today just wasn't going to pan out at all.  About an hour or so later I woke up again and started to think about options to shoot.  I looked at the weather again and saw that the clouds were pretty thick outside, and that the partly cloudy conditions were going to be around 70% coverage.  I then had the idea to look at a new app that I installed a few days ago.  This is "Clear Sky" and shows the detail of where the clouds are, and what kind of coverage is expected.  This gave me a different perspective showing good cloud cover until early afternoon.

That told me that I was actually able to go to the two locations in Stokes County if I wanted to give it a try.  The main location I wanted to try was off of Hwy 8 and was an old garage with a busted Chevy sitting out front.  I have passed this location many times and wanted to get a composition, but the lighting had never been right with it.  I also knew that I wanted the overgrowth of late Summer rather than just an empty frame rail.  I was running out of time to shoot this car unless I wanted to wait until next Summer.  With the weather looking good, I decided to go on and give it a go.

I grabbed my gear and set off on the drive into Stokes.  The entire way there I was behind a dump truck that was going between 25-35mph despite the road being a 55mph limit in most places.  There were no passing zones where I could get around him so I just sat in place and took in the scenery.  A bit over an hour later, I arrived at the car.  I have no idea who owns the property, but I decided to take my chances with this one and pulled off on the side of the road.  I picked out my 24-70mm lens and added a Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer to it and mounted the camera on my tripod.  I worked compositions on both sides of the car and tried to include the sign on the shop wall that stated that this was an Official Inspection Station.  I found that rather funny when paired with the Chevy below.

The problem that I was having with this composition was that to open things up and let them breathe a bit, I needed to include the sky.  The sky was brighter than the shadows I was shooting in which caused exposure problems.  Instead of hoping that I could recover the shadows, I just went ahead and added a Galen Rowell 3-Stop ND Grad to control the exposure at the very top of the image.  This worked very well and allowed me to get the exposure that I wanted on the main subject while keeping the sky from blowing out.

After a while shooting with this lens, I decided to swap out to my 70-200mm and step away from the car to get a bit more compressed look to the image.  I found myself shooting basically the same compositions with this lens.  Without the perspective distortion, the car seemed to disappear into the background of the shop.  In the end, I didn't like any of the ones that I shot with the long lens.  In fact, out of thirty some pictures, I ended up only liking one enough to keep it.  This was part of the reason it took so long to shoot this car.  I knew that getting a good composition was going to be difficult with the lay of the land.  I am quite happy with this image though, and it captured everything that I wanted it to.

I seemed to end this one rather abruptly.  When I decided that I was done I went back to the truck and broke down the camera rather quickly.  I was getting sweaty and hot which was just not cool at 10am in the Fall!  I got back on the road and decided that I would check out another location that I had scoped out a few weeks ago further into Stokes County.  I had pinned the location on my phone so I just let it direct me to the location.  I didn't have a lot of hope for this location since I was expecting it to be gated like when I saw it last.  The car was sitting in front of a pretty bland commercial building, but it did have grass growing up underneath of it at least.  My plan was to shoot with the 70-200mm lens with possibly the 2X teleconverter attached.  That should isolate the car well enough from the road.

Wing and a Prayer

When I got there, I was actually surprised to see the gate open and a truck by the corner of the building.  I didn't drive fully into the property though thinking that there was a good possibility that the gate might need to shut while I was shooting if I could get permission.  I parked and started walking up to the shop.  I saw no movement or signs of life.  I knocked on doors to no avail.  I looked around and figured since the gate was open, and there were no fences I might be able to stick around and shoot really quickly.

I grabbed my camera and mounted the 70-200mm lens as I didn't want to get too close to the car.  I had also seen a couple of other old cars that looked promising as well which I could do easily with the long lens.  Of course, I added the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer since I was dealing with glass and metal.  I got everything set up and turned the camera on as I heard a lawn mower coming down the road.  By this stage in my tenure as a photographer I knew a lawn mower driving on the road toward where I was could only mean one thing.  The pavement needed to be mowed.  (Pausing for laughter).  It meant that the property owner was on the way to talk to me.  This could mean that either I was going to be leaving shortly, or I was about to have better access to things.

As the mower turned into the driveway I knew I had pegged the situation.  I made sure that the tripod was stable and I walked over to meet him.  I wasn't sure how this was going to go, but I introduced myself and explained why I was there.  He ultimately gave me permission to shoot the cars out in the open area of the lot which included the Chevy that I had seen earlier as well as the shell of a Nash, and a Chevy Nova just on the side of the building.  This was great news, and I was very thankful for the opportunity.  It did come with one caveat though.  It appeared that he was mowing the yard while I shot the cars.  I get it, I really do.  I would want to watch a stranger doing anything around my property as well.  We managed to stay out of each other's way for the duration of the time that I was out there.

Roll the Dice

Now that I had permission to be on the property, I was set to do more than just a quick overall shot before moving on.  I had the long lens on, and did a couple of shots that I had previsualized when I had originally found this car.  They weren't all that great, so I moved on to doing some more intimate shots of the sections of the car that particularly interested me.  One of the sections that really caught my eye was the broken quarter window on the driver's side.  I loved how the glass was shattered and it paired so nicely with the patina on the side of the car.  As an added bonus, there was a skull and crossbones decal on the door under the handle that really set the tone for what this car is...or was.

Deluxe Decay

While I was shooting my intimate shots, I moved to the front of the car for my trademark headlight/grill shot.  Typically I would do this with my normal lens, but since I was usually zooming to nearly 70mm I decided to just keep the long lens attached.  It worked just fine this way, and I managed to get a nice composition from the corner of the car.  The chrome really stood out against the black paint and the rusty undercoat.  The lines all seemed to work together to form an abstract design that flowed.  Oddly enough, there was what appeared to be chrome paint on the bumper corner from an earlier repair possibly.

I was pretty sure that I was done with this car for now.  I needed my 24-70mm lens to try some other compositions, but before I switched that lens in, I wanted to work on the Nash that was parked on the side of the property.  This was just a shell and a hood, but the blue color along with the rust tones were just perfect against the trees in the background.  I knew I was going to need the long lens for this since it was parked very close to a more modern minivan and I was going to need to cut in close to avoid that.  The trees were also taking up a very small section behind before dropping off to show power lines and a house across the street.

Nash in the Grass

I found this a very hard vehicle to form a composition with.  The hood was angled off to the driver's side which pretty much dictated that I shoot from that side.  This was fine since there was a long bungee cord holding the hood to the A pillar on the passenger side.  It distracted from the composition way too much for me to want to shoot that side just for that reason alone.  The lack of a front end of the car made the hood the anchor for the car, but there were no wheels visible through the grass to balance out the front end.  I couldn't really do a full on quarter view since there was very little body.  Essentially, I was taking a picture of a hood and a windshield frame.  The colors were good, and the grass was tall so I went for it.

Gnashing Beak

The sky was not looking great, but for the shot that I felt was really the key view, I was going to need to include the sky.  Looking up, I didn't see much definition at all in the clouds.  This was not going to be good at all to have a blank void at the top of the image.  I flipped on the live view and started to reduce the exposure to see what effect it had on the sky.  I was seeing it go from white to gray, but I could still see no detail in the clouds.  That told me that it would be worthless to add an ND Grad to the lens as it would just turn the white sky gray.  If this was going to work, I was going to have to hope that I could pull the detail out in post processing later on.

As you can see, I did capture some detail in the sky here.  I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to accomplish this.  I just added a grad filter in Lightroom where I reduced the sky exposure slightly, and then worked the "Dehaze" slider ever so slightly to get a hint of definition in the sky.  It worked very well, and I ended up with a sky that was worth being in a photograph.  The blues in the clouds as well as in the body of the car balanced very nicely with the greens and reds  which made up the rest of the composition.  When I was done with this, I thought about trying something with my 24-70mm lens, but opted out of it as there was too much potential clutter in the background if I went any wider than what I was already shooting at.

Winking

I still had one more car to work with.  It was a pale yellow Nova sitting on the side of the shop.  I was not happy to see that it was a four door version though.  I would have much rather shot a two door, but I couldn't argue with the patina on it, so I got to work.  I started out focusing on the front of the car against the side of the building.  I thought by cropping out the back half of the car I might be able to disguise the sedan body.  That image lacked any kind of emotion though and ultimately didn't make the cut.  I worked around more and more and found that my standard quarter shot worked the best for this car using the trees as a background instead of the building.  It wasn't a two door model, but with a 16:9 crop, I gave it a little bit of a sleeker feel leaving the primary focus on the front end of the car.  I really liked that there was a headlight missing which really finalized the story of the car.

Weather Worn

I looked around the Nova to see if there were any isolations that I could do.  Nothing really stood out to me though.  The few areas that I would have typically worked were missing key parts that made the composition in my opinion.  I decided that this one view was all the old Nova needed and moved back to the original Chevy out front.  I was ready to try some different things with this car now.  I swapped the lenses for my 24-70mm while keeping the Polarizer attached.  I got in close to the car for a little perspective distortion and started working the composition.  I wanted to minimize the building behind the car so I elevated the camera to about seven feet.  This gave an interesting view of the car and really concentrated on the patina on the hood.  More importantly though, the building was minimized.  I was able to compose the shot in such a way that I was including the stairs to the door on the right side of the image for a bit of balance in the image.  I cropped it as an 8x10 to keep it simple and add a little visual punch to the image.

Hot Rod Deluxe

I liked how this composition was looking in the camera, but felt that it might not work as well at full size later on.  I really wanted to get down low to show the stance of the car.  The problem there was I was going to have to include the building as well as the sky which was still rather bleak looking.  As with the Nash, I decided to give it a try and see what I could bring out in post.  I dropped the camera down low to the ground and started to frame up a composition.  What I found was I was able to get the angle where the two sections met.  This was good as it helped give depth where a straight building would not have worked.  It helped to lead the eyes to the car which was great.  I also had a minimum of sky to work with which was a plus as well.  The angle was such that there was no way I would be able to get an ND Grad to work, that was unfortunate.  However, as with the Nash, I felt that I would be able to get some detail out of the sky in post.  It was worth a try anyway.

When I got home, I found success here as well.  I did the same techniques as I did with the Nash to bring out the little bit of detail in the clouds.  It wasn't much, but it was effective in setting the mood, and providing just enough visual interest to make it worth including in the frame.  What was really a gamble of a shot turned into my favorite of the day.  Funny how that works out isn't it?  I really do like this piece for the angles that are in it, the lines, the patina, and the shape of the building fully holding the car in the frame.  It was similar to what I had previsualized, but so much better in every way.  

Style and Decay

Now that I had my workhorse (for automotive photography at least) lens back on, I set to work picking out more details on the body.  The rust was wonderful, and this car still had a good bit of its chrome still in tact.  I started to look for abstract compositions that excited me.  The sides gave me all sorts of views that worked well I thought.  I looked for textures, and transitions between the paint and the rust.  Occasionally, I was able to get the rust stained paint that glistened under the diffused light above.

Fractured Finish

The rear fenders really held my attention with their lines.  The chrome trim at the tops of the fenders was great on both sides of the car.  In an attempt to capture the awesome shattered glass once more, I worked out this composition that had lots of rust staining, abstract lines, textures, and just all around great patina.  I'm usually not a fan of shooting black cars in this condition, but I have to say that this one is among my top choices with patina.  The contrast is just so perfect and the paint still has a good bit of gloss that really draws the attention to the rust.  I'm so glad that I had the ability to get up close and personal with this car.

Where to Go?

Before I packed up the camera, I set up a shot that captured the steering wheel which still had the Bowtie emblem on the horn.  The dash was pretty much in tact, and I was able to compose a shot that included the side mirror and hood ornament as well.  The chrome of the door frame made a great leading line and frame for the cockpit as well.  It is a little bit of a different image for me, but I'm starting to like doing them when the opportunity presents itself.  This is also a great example of what a polarizer can do for you.  The glass is in tact for the most part here, and had a glare on it from the clouds.  By adjusting the polarizer to this point, I was able to eliminate the glare and be able to shoot into the car with no issues.  

At this point, the property owner was finishing up mowing and was going around to the side of the building.  I was pretty sure that I had gotten everything that I could from this location.  I started to pack up and went around to let him know I was leaving.  We chatted briefly and he told me about another location with some older cars and said that he would try to get in touch with the owner of that property.  It sounds really promising, and I really hope that it works out at some point in the near future.

By this time, I wasn't sure how many images that I was going to have as keepers, but I knew that I had shot a total of 72 frames, evenly split between the two locations.  The first location I had been mulling over for a year or more and felt that I had a lot of good stuff from there.  This second location was my alternate subject that I really didn't have much enthusiasm for.  It turned out to be my favorite location of the day with lots of variations on compositions, not to mention three different cars to shoot.  It really is funny how the success of a shoot doesn't necessarily relate to how much thought or planning had gone into it.  I love that about photography, and it goes to show that to be successful in this game, you have to adapt to what is there at the time.  Planning will only get you so far, reading the scene will get you the rest of the way.

Blue Ridge Weekend: Driving All Over

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Elk Lean

OK, so to catch up here, this is the second part to a three part blog entry about a weekend in the mountains.  This was my first full day, and my plan was to take advantage of the partial cloud cover and do some rural exploration.  There are a lot of back roads in the mountains with barns and old cars just waiting to be photographed.  The light that I was expecting was going to be pretty much perfect for this.  When the alarm rang I checked the weather and found that there were going to be a bit more clouds in the area, and currently, the clouds were really low.  I knew that sunrise wasn't going to be an option, so I set the alarm for another hour away which would get me up for the breakfast at the hotel.  It seemed like only a few minutes, but 6am was here and it was time to get up and functioning.  I was really glad that I had opted for a hotel rather than sleeping in the truck.  I had slept all night, but was still tired.

I finished up with breakfast and finished getting ready to head out.  With the increased cloud cover I thought it might be a good time to get Elk River Falls which I had originally planned for Sunday.  No reason to wait if the conditions were going to be decent today.  That would also get me out in an area that I recall had some pretty nice rural settings.  I could reasonably see myself spending the entire day in the area of Newland, and Elk Park, NC.  I got my gear and off I went.  The trip was pretty simple and I enjoyed the drive.  The clouds were clearing, however, and that made me a little nervous about doing waterfall photography.

My first inclination was to abort Elk River Falls and concentrate on the rural settings.  The more I thought about it though, something was pulling me to the waterfall.  Despite the weather not really looking promising, my heart said to keep on going.  I've learned to listen to these inner clues over the years because I usually get some of my best images when I follow their lead.  I did know that there were compositions that could benefit from a bit of blue sky, and I was thinking that might just work with what I was seeing above.

When I finally got to the parking area, there was one other car parked in the lot.  I was hoping for none, but a single car was no big deal.  I grabbed my gear and started down the short trail to the falls.  The last time I was here was 10 years ago and honestly, I wasn't recognizing any of the trails.  I barely recognized the parking lot.  There was a short spur off of the main trail that took you to the top of the waterfall.  You can file this under something that I didn't recall, so I decided to walk out to see if there was anything picture worthy up there.

What I found was an impressive flow over the rocks, and lots of moss undertones to the water.  The composition was interesting enough to pull the camera out and see what I could do with it.  I fitted my 24-70mm lens along with the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer before mounting to the tripod.  I started to play with different compositions before I finally settled on the one that opens this entry.  It wasn't anything special, but the quality of the water was just too good to pass up.

What I really liked about how this shot worked out was it looked like an arm reaching out to the side as if to give an embrace.  There was just something oddly human about this part of the waterfall, and it comforted me.  This was ironic considering all of the signs posted about how dangerous it was at the top of the waterfall, and how dozens of victims had slipped and fallen to their deaths here.  This is the sad part of doing waterfall photography.  Just about everywhere I go, there have been deaths by people doing what I'm doing, or just simply being where I am.  It is a sobering thought.

Elk River Falls

Even though it was really pretty at the top of the waterfall, I was looking to get to the bottom of the falls and try some photographs of the main event.  It looked as though there was nobody around, and that was a great surprise after seeing the car in the parking lot.  It took no time at all before I got down to the bottom and started to walk over the long rock that acts as a bridge to the center of the pool.  I saw a small jean jacket that belonged to child sitting on the rock that I guess had been left by visitors in the past.  It had been out there for some time it appeared.

I started to survey the scene to see what I could come up with.  I started out with my 16-35mm lens, but wasn't really happy with what I was getting.  I moved up to the 24-70mm lens with the Singh-Ray Polarizer and found a little bit better of a perspective.  It still wasn't what I was wanting though.  I was happy that there was a bit of blue in the sky directly above the falls which I have found is pretty mandatory if you are going to shoot a full on shot of this one.  The sun was still covered by clouds to my left so I had a good exposure.  Composition was what I was lacking.

I decided to see if a panorama would work out, and started to put the elements together in my head.  I left the current lens on, and flipped it on its side.  I did a test pass and everything looked good.  I ended up doing an eight shot series of the pool beneath the falls.  The rocks in the water made for great bookends to the shot, and the bit of blue hung nicely over the falls.  This was pretty good, but I didn't like the way the water was looking.  The ripples and movement disrupted the scene a little bit, but not terribly.  It did lead me to an idea though.

Without a Ripple

I have been wanting to use my 10-Stop ND filter more, and I saw this as an opportunity to make that happen.  I brought the 16-35mm lens back out since I had moved positions a bit.  I started to play with compositions a little bit more and found one that I thought worked out nicely.  I added my B+W Polarizer since it was a slim mount, and then screwed the Lee Filter holder onto that.  I slid in the Singh-Ray Mor-Slo filter and looked through the viewfinder.  It was pretty much black.  I checked the live view, but it took adjusting my exposure greatly before I could see anything.  Ten stops is a lot of light to lose!

I worked out an exposure at 30 seconds and looked at the results.  I was onto something, but the water still was too rough for my tastes.  I shifted into Bulb mode and started working some longer exposures.  I ultimately ended up with a three minute exposure at f/14 and ISO 100.  Not only did that smooth out the water, it showed a good bit of movement in the clouds above which added to the drama of the scene.  The rocks were dead still , so they appear to be sitting on top of ice.  This was the image that I was wanting and hadn't even known I wanted it.

By this time, there were people joining me at the bottom and what was worse, there were more walking around at the top of the falls.  My serenity was over, and the compositions I was wanting had come to an end as well.  I packed up carefully since I was kind of balancing everything on the spine of a rock.  I worked my way through the crowds back to the parking lot.  However, I decided to make one quick side trip.  There was a set of rapids before the waterfall that had interested me when I was walking down.  Not wanting to miss out on any good lighting for the main falls, I had skipped this location initially.  Now was a great time to give it a try though.

With a Quickness

Looking at this section of water, I knew that I was going to be better off shooting isolations than an overall shot.  I went ahead and fitted my 70-200mm lens and the Singh-Ray Polarizer.  I started to frame up compositions, but wasn't getting the look I was after.  I couldn't get any closer, so I decided I needed more reach.  I grabbed my extender and added it between the lens and camera.  There it was!  I was seeing my ideas come into focus at this point.  I started to pick out areas to isolate and cranked off about 10 different shots of the rapids.  The one that I deemed the best needed one small tweak in post processing.  I flipped it on its horizontal axis so that it flowed from left to right as we read.  This made the image "read" much better than before.  Within in a few minutes of arriving here, the sun was starting to get a little bright, and there were more and more people joining in on the trails.  It was time to get gone.

When I got back to the parking lot, it was packed with cars, and more were coming in.  I loaded everything in the back of the truck and made room for somebody else.  Man, I was glad I got there when I did because there would be no way I would have been able to shoot this location with all of the people that were showing up.  Now the sun was out, and the clouds were sporadic at best.  I figured I could possibly make it work if I was shooting rural scenes.  I would just be very dependent on the direction of the sun to make my scenes work out.  I started driving aimlessly around and looking for things to photograph.

There were a lot of great subjects, but the nature of everything here caused there to be no room for the subject to breathe.  Without a compelling composition or great lighting I was letting scene after scene go by.  I even found myself wandering into Tennessee for about 30 minutes.  I was starting to get discouraged and a little frustrated at my lack of luck hunting rust.  On the other hand, I was noticing that the sky was starting to get a little more cloudy.  It was time to head back to the Parkway and start looking for grand landscapes where I could capitalize on the developing sky.

I keyed the Parkway into my GPS as I was hopelessly lost at this point.  I got on the correct course and began moving in the right direction.  My eye caught a side road that sparked my attention for some reason.  I didn't see anything on it, but something made me turn left.  Within 100 feet of entering the road I passed by one of the oddest shaped rocks in a lake that I have seen.  It caught my eye, but I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to photograph it.  I continued on to the end of the road where I found an awesome old Chevy truck, but it was sitting in the most unpicturesque location I could imagine.  There was a chain link fence, power pole, and an aluminum building all right in front of the truck near the bumper.  The house was to the rear of the truck, across the road.  There was no angle to shoot it from.

Arrowhead Reflections

I got turned around and went back to the main road.  I stopped at the rock in the lake one more time and decided that it was worth taking a few shots of.  With the distance I was having to work from, I knew I would need my 70-200mm lens.  Since I was wanting a reflection, I skipped the polarizer, and shot with nothing on the front of the lens.  I tried several different compositions, and even tried the 10-Stop filter.  Unfortunately, the trees were not still enough for that to work.  The composition that I decided on ultimately was the one that had the double rock on the left, pointing to the the alcove in the lake.  There was a grove of trees situated in the right hand side of the composition that were illuminated by the sun providing a great bit of focal lighting.  The water was still enough to provide great reflections as well.  Hey, that little voice that told me to turn left really paid off.  See why I listen to that voice so often?

At this point, I was back in the mood to shoot landscapes and I was looking forward to getting back on the Parkway.  I entered it at Hwy 221 and headed South towards Linville Falls since it had started to rain.  The closer to the falls I got, the lighter the rain became.  It actually started to clear up as I was passing the Hwy 181 bridge.  I happened to look at the bridge and thought that the light was pretty good on the bridge.  I pulled off on the side of the road and grabbed my gear.

Blue Ridge Intersection

I had shot this bridge before and knew that the trick was a wide angle lens.  I grabbed my 16-35mm lens and added the B+W polarizer so I wouldn't have any vignetting issues.  I worked my way up the hill beside the bridge and worked out a composition that put an arch in the arch of the bridge.  The actual roadway above was presented as a strong diagonal element that complimented the diagonal of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The trees made for a great balancing element.  I started off shooting an HDR series just in case I wasn't able to get the exposure to work out.  Then I started to shoot single shot exposures watching my histogram as I went.  I even switched sides and shot from across the road.  In the end, none of those images made the cut, and the HDR image that I had shot was also trashed in favor of this single image that I thought turned out really well.

Waiting for the Thunder

With the sun back out, I wasn't going to finish heading to Linville Falls as I was sure the parking lot was jammed with cars, and the sun would make it too bright to shoot any of the moving water.  Instead, I decided to go back North to see what I could see.  The clouds were looking really cool in certain areas of the sky, and I wanted to go somewhere to take advantage of them.  The further North I went the more I started thinking about Thunder Hill.  This is one of those overlooks that can be shot from all different directions with equal success.  There are even areas near the overlook that work out as grand landscapes.  That was to be my destination.

When I arrived, I could see that the main overlook wasn't really that eye catching with the haze over the mountains in the distance.  The back side of the overlook was looking spectacular.  As an added bonus there were no people on that side.  I parked the truck and grabbed my gear.  I decided to use the 16-35mm lens with the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer for this series.  I started to look for different compositions on the ridge.  There was just so much to work with between the fence, the sky, and the goldenrods that were in abundance.

Goldenrod Ridge

The sky was awesome in just about every direction.  I even managed a shot that included the Blue Ridge Parkway as it split the treeline over the ridge to the North.  The fence had several sections with a lot of character which I enjoyed taking advantage of.  I think that my enjoyment of the area was starting to draw attention.  One by one, people started to show up on this side of the road.  They would start walking down the MST trail through the field, or would walk along the ridge where I was shooting.  For the most part nobody got in my way  which was nice.

Summer Clouds

I managed to keep the wide angle lens attached the entire time I was on the ridge.  I thought about switching over to a different one, but I could really find no compositions that would have supported a different focal length than I was currently using.  There was just so much that caught my eye, and I was really having a great time.  The light did eventually start to fade, and I decided that I would go and find another location to shoot.  This one was getting overgrown with people the longer I was there.  There was even a portrait shoot going on near where I was shooting in the field.  I was pretty sure that this was the same photographer I had seen during a sunrise a year or so ago.  Funny how paths keep crossing for photographers.

I continued North and finally came back to the location that I had started my weekend at just below the Mount Jefferson Overlook.  The sky was looking really nice for the middle of the day.  I decided that I would take advantage of the sky, from the opposite side of the road.  There is another fence and a green gate just a bit further down and on the other side of the road. This was going to be my subject for the next little bit.  I grabbed my gear and decided to go with my 16-35mm lens once again, along with the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer.  I got set up where I could include the fence and the gate as it hooked off into the distance.  As I started to shoot, I realized that there was a car parked right where I had been the night before.  It was in a position where it would be really hard to clone out, but I had no choice for the longest time.  When he finally left, I celebrated by moving across the road and including the entire stretch of empty roadway.

Miles of Smiles

I was so happy that the road was finally clear, and I had the shot that I was after.  Including the roadway really brought this image new life, and it turned out to be my favorite of this set, even though I was able to get my original composition shot with the car gone as well.  The one thing that didn't set well with me was the fact that the road traveled from right to left in the frame.  Since we read from left to right, I decided to flip the image so that it would read a bit better.  The converging diagonals in the image were fantastic, and added a lot of drama.  I was still able to include the green gate, and the semi bare tree in the field which I have always been drawn to.  The pines in the distance really give the image a sense of depth as well.  Oh yeah, and that sky!!

Having worked this scene as much as I cared to, it was time to move on.  I thought that the best option at this point was going to be the area of Doughton Park a bit further up the road.  I had some ideas that might work well with the sky that I was seeing.  I was also looking forward to seeing the fences along the Parkway once you get into the park proper.

Doughton's Gold

I didn't find any fences along the Parkway that I wanted to photograph, but once I was inside the park, I found a lot of great subject matter.  The goldenrods were out in full force, and the grasses in the meadow were starting to change color so I had all kinds of color contrasts to work with, not to mention the sky that was looking really nice above.  The first shot that I tried was right next to where I parked.  I grabbed my 24-70mm lens for this shot and added the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer along with a 2-Stop Galen Rowell ND Grad.

I really wanted to include the goldenrods with the fence so I was needing to stay elevated near the parking lot.  I set things up with a composition that had a nice diagonal line leading you into the scene, the different colors of the meadow as well as the sky above.  I had just about everything that I could have wanted in a picture at this point.  I did quite a few compositions on this theme until I was able to settle on this one here.

A Field to Frolic

I continued along the fence to the main meadow of Doughton.  this has always been a source of fun for me to photograph.  I have been here in all seasons and have always attempted a shot or two of this area each time.  this time I had some different elements that I wanted to include.  The goldenrods were quite prevalent among the browning grasses.  The green tree stood out strongly in the field as well.  I still had my 24-70mm lens attached, and it was just about perfect for the composition that I was wanting.  I framed a nice tight shot with the goldenrods as the foreground interest.  The sky was looking really good with the benefit of the ND Grad I was using.  The trick was to wait for the wind to stop long enough to make the exposure with the flowers relatively still.  It happened occasionally, but patience sure was a necessary thing for this composition.

Summer Colors

The more I looked at the field, the more I was really engrossed by the colors of the grasses and goldenrods.  I decided that I would do an abstract piece highlighting these elements.  I needed to get in much tighter than the current lens would allow.  I swapped it out for my 70-200mm, to which I added the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer.  From here, I started framing patterns in the field that caught my eye.  These are not really my typical shot, but it was fun to work outside of my normal box for a bit.

Summer's Last Blooms

In some cases I was able to get in really close to the goldenrods and really get them highlighted in the frame.  Using limited depth of field helps these to stand out from the background.  An added benefit is that the shutter speed gets quicker with the opened aperture so the wind was less of an issue for these shots.  I really wasn't sure how these would turn out, but I figured that it was a photo weekend and digital images were free...might as well give it a whirl huh?

I thought that before I left I would go and get some pictures of the trail through the meadow.  Since the grasses were really high, there should be some good compositions to be had on the trail, especially if the sky held.  I walked down to the opening in the fence and looked to see what kind of compositions I could find.  As I was looking, the sky started to change in a very dramatic way.  These clouds that were rolling in were incredible.  I had to photograph these, and I had to do it quickly!

Oz

I had to think quick, and my instincts were telling me to grab my 16-35mm lens and my stack of ND Grads.  Since I was shooting into the sun, there wasn't much need in a polarizer, plus that just slowed the process down when working with the Grads.  I got the camera built and added a Singh-Ray 3-Stop Galen Rowell ND Grad to control the exposure of the sky.  I started taking composition after composition.  Each shot was delayed as I waited for the wind to die down a bit since I was so close to the goldenrods.  The trail was amazing as a leading line through the scene, and the LCD review images were looking so promising.

Through the Never

The sky and the lighting kept changing minute by minute.  I ended up with two exposures made during the peak of the drama.  I got a landscape as well as portrait of basically the same sky.  While both are very similar, I have chosen to keep them both because one shows the drama in the sky, while the other shows the magnitude of what was going on in the sky.  In both cases, the trail leads your eyes through the image.  The clouds provide a background that pulls you deep within the frame.  

These conditions lasted for about 10 minutes and then the clouds lost their drama.  Finding myself under "normal" skies once again I thought that I needed to find a place for sunset.  I had about two hours before that happened.  I got everything loaded back up in the truck and grabbed a little snack before heading out in search of my next location.  With the day coming to a close, I decided that it might be in my best interests to start heading back in the direction of Blowing Rock and the hotel.

Well, good plans.....

I ended up stopping a short distance from where I had been at the Alligator  Back Overlook which was just on the other side of the meadow I had been shooting minutes before.  I had shot this section of the Blue Ridge Parkway last year and figured that the composition would work at sunset as well.  The clouds were decent, but time would tell if there would be any color in them come sunset.  I got out of the truck and walked around looking to see if there were any alternative compositions that I could use.  I found a couple of ideas, but as I was looking, the clouds were starting to actually fade away to just a hazy sky.  This wasn't going to work.  I decided to get back in the truck and head back South.  If something developed on the way, so be it.  I was tired and needed to get to the hotel sooner rather than later.

The Lump

As I was driving, I started to think about an image that I had seen of the Lump Overlook several months ago.  It was a minimalist image, and one that has haunted me since.  With the sky starting to look somewhat interesting again, I decided to give it a try.  I stopped at the Lump Overlook and saw that the clouds over the hill were looking pretty nice.  As an added benefit, the sky to the West was looking very promising as well.  I got out and grabbed my gear.  I wanted to start with the minimalist shot first.  For this one, I attached my 24-70mm lens along with the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer so that I could get as much definition out of the clouds as possible.  You see a polarizer works better when the sun is at 90 degrees from the angle of the shot, and I was shooting due South.  I got down low and started to frame my shot.  I couldn't remember how the inspiration image went, but that wasn't important.  What I needed from that image was the inspiration to create an image of my own.  I loved the fence, and wanted to include that.  The trail snaked its way through the grass, but didn't have the benefit of overgrown grass as I had seen at Doughton.

I shot several different versions of this scene over the course of about 20-30 minutes.  Each shot was composed differently, and had a different feel to it.  They all stayed with a minimalist theme though.  I was keeping a constant eye over my right shoulder to see when it would be time to play with the sunset.  That time came about 45 minutes before sunset.  It was time to get the camera set up slightly different for a new composition.

I chose to go with my 16-35mm lens so that I could really emphasize the fence as a leading line.  I picked out my location and started to frame up the shot.  I quickly realized that exposure difference was just too much for the camera to handle.  I grabbed a Singh Ray 3-Stop Galen Rowell ND Grad and slid it into the Lee Holder.  It was looking better, but still wasn't quite right.  I then added an additional 2-Stop Grad for a total of 5 stops of light reduction in the sky.  Check out the video I shot showing how this works.

As you can see, I was starting to get hopeful about the sunset.  The clouds were really dramatic, and I was envisioning the sky exploding with color just before sunset.  Well, it didn't quite work out that way.  But....my patience did allow me to see a bit of color in the sky after the clouds moved in and covered the sun.  There was apparently a small slit in the clouds right at the horizon.  At 7:40 (2 minutes before official sunset), the sun found its way through the clouds for one last hurrah of the day.

Split Rail Sunset

It wasn't a glorious sunset, but I had a composition I really liked, and I was hoping that something was going to happen even though the sun had slipped behind the clouds.  I did get a bit of color, and I was quite happy about that.  Sometimes subtle color can be just as effective as an impressive showing.  Regardless, at this point, I had gotten what I had come to get.  It was time to head back to the room and get a shower.  Ahhh yes, I was so happy that I had opted for a room.  

At this point, I started to look at my plans for Sunday.  Since I had shot Elk River Falls this morning, that left me with Catawba Falls to shoot.  The weather was still looking great for those with a chance of storms around 8am and then mostly cloudy skies for the rest of the day.  It was nearly perfect lighting conditions for waterfall photography.  I figured that I would get up, eat breakfast and be on the road in time to get to the falls between 8-9am.  Michael had told me that I needed to get there early to beat the crowds.  I was hoping that the threat of rain would keep everyone away.  Time would tell if that was a reasonable theory.

For now, it was time to go to bed.

Friday: Old news, that was yesterday
Saturday:  You are here
Sunday:  One last stop before leaving the mountains