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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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

Blue Ridge Weekend: Mount Jefferson

Friday, September 7, 2018

Blue Ridge Fury

Much like the week long beach trip from June, this weekend in the mountains is going to be too image intensive to do them all in a single entry.  I am going to break them up by day as I did with the beach images.  It will make it easier for me to keep things straight, and will make for more organization with the pictures.  To get started, I decided at the last minute to spend the weekend at the mountains.  The goal was to pretty much go off the grid and be alone with my thoughts for a while.  Since this was last minute, I didn't have much time to prepare for anything.  I just kind of added to a destination that I had thought about earlier.  I had been looking at the weather for the weekend and had seen that I was going to have heavy clouds on Sunday.  That meant that I was going to be able to do waterfalls, which was my goal.

Maybe a month ago, a friend of mine, Michael Surratt had posted some pictures from Catawba Falls in Old Fort, NC.  Surprisingly, I had never been there before.  I was familiar with the name, but for some reason the pictures didn't spark any memories of researching this waterfall.  It was a grand one, and it had a lot of isolations I could shoot as well.  Since I was planning on going that way on Sunday, I decided to base in the Boone/Blowing Rock area for the weekend.  That would get me a bit closer to the waterfall, and would put me in an area where I was confident that I could make use of the weather conditions that appeared.

When I got off work on Friday, I came home and loaded up the truck.  Well, my camera gear took up most of the room as my personal effects took up a small duffel bag.  My goal was to get up to the Parkway in time to shoot a sunset.  I wasn't going to have a lot of time to explore, so I needed to get a destination in mind on the way up there.  I had shot the standard locations plenty of times, but wanted to try something a bit different.  The location that came to mind was the area just South of the Mount Jefferson Overlook.  I have done many photos here using the fence and red gate.  The last time I did, somebody mentioned that this view has great sunset potential.  Well, that was all the prompting that I needed, and that became my destination.

I stopped for gas in Wilkesboro, and then turned up Hwy 16 towards the Parkway.  This would get me reasonably close to the area of Mount Jefferson and hopefully there in time to capture the sunset.  The trip went well and I made it up on the Parkway about an hour or so before sunset.  I pulled off to the side of the road and got the camera set up.  I fiddled with a couple of different compositions and lens combinations before the light show started.

The magic bullet here was my 16-35mm lens with the Lee Filter Holder attached.  I added a Singh-Ray Daryl Benson 3-Stop Reverse ND Grad to help with the exposure difference in the sky and foreground.  As the sun dropped closer to the horizon, I fine tuned my composition so that I could capitalize on the sky as well as the fence and gate.  I even shot an HDR image early on that I ended up tossing out in favor of a single shot that was made maybe 10 minutes later.  This shot is the opening image of the evening, and quite frankly is my absolute favorite from the evening.  It was only 1 of about 40 frames shot though, so there were plenty more other compositions as well.

Blue and Gold

When I was pretty sure that I had the shots that I wanted of the entire scene, I wanted to shoot some isolations of the hills under the sky.  I swapped out my lens to my 70-200mm long lens and started to pick out portions of the sunset that struck my fancy.  The sky was dynamic in places, and this lens was really good at pulling those details out of the sky.  In fact, my shooting position was the same for both of these images.  You can really tell the difference from 16mm to the tight crop of a 182mm.  There has been no post capture cropping of either image.  Regardless, I was still not fully getting the isolation I was really wanting from the scene.  I needed a bit more reach than I was using currently.

Evening Rolls In

I reached into my bag of goodies and pulled out my 2x teleconverter and added it between the camera and lens for a bit more reach.  This shot was done at 335mm from the same position as the other two.  I really liked the abstract qualities in these shots with the rolling hills underneath the dramatic clouds.  The sky was colorful enough that I shot these with the intention of keeping them color as opposed to converting them as I have in the past with these mountain isolations.

The sun was quickly dropping and my light was on the way to being done for the evening.  While the color was fading quickly, there was still a bit of detail in the clouds to the Northeast, and the clouds were really cool looking.  I had to get another shot of this before it went completely dark.  I pulled converter and the long lens off of the camera and added the 16-35mm lens again, but with no filters.  I got down low to the ground as the sky was my main goal to capture.  I just needed to find a bit of foreground interest to set the clouds off.

Infinity Cloud

As luck would have it, the gate that I so adore worked great.  I just moved my position down a bit and got down on my knees so I could see the camera.  I tried a horizontal shot, but it didn't get the full drama in the sky which was what I was after.  Since there was a rather pronounced swoosh in the sky, I decided to concentrate on that and I flipped the camera on its side.  That did the trick.  I was able to zoom out to 16mm and get the fence and gate in the shot right below the edge of the cloud.  It was dark, so this counts as a long exposure at 10 full seconds at f/16 and ISO 100.  There were no filters used here either, but there was a fair amount of work in Lightroom to get the colors back to where they were to my eyes.  The original image was pretty much all blue because we had started the "Blue Hour," but that wasn't what my eyes were seeing.

When I finally worked out that last scene, the light was all but gone.  It was time to pack it up and find a place to lay down for the night.  The though had passed through my head to just sleep in the 4Runner, which was part of the reason that I bought the SUV in the first place.  Realistically, I could have done it without too much problem.  However, the bugs were really bad and I was already eaten up.  With the warm conditions, I was pretty sure I would be sleeping with the windows down which would make me a buffet for the bugs.  Knowing that I would be out here for two nights and had worked a full day already, I wanted a shower.  With that thought, I went into Boone to see what was available.  The list of hotels were rather slim at a price that I was willing to pay.  The cheapest had two rooms left, and both were smoking.  That would defeat the purpose of the shower as I didn't want to smell like cigarettes for the weekend.  The only other option that I could find was in Blowing Rock which actually worked out.

I got checked in and cleaned up.  It was now time to look at what I was going to shoot tomorrow.  Looking at the weather, the sunrise was not going to be all that great, and it was likely to be rather cloudy.  This meant that I could sleep in a bit and then hit the continental breakfast before going out.  The forecast was for intermittent clouds for most of the day with a chance for storms in the late evening.  That was definitely workable, and I figured that I would be able to do some rural driving in search of rust and barns.  I wasn't really wanting to spend all day on the Parkway because after a while that would start to get a little monotonous.  The plan Sunday was to head out to Elk River Falls first thing in the morning and follow that up with Catawba Falls before heading home.

I had my plan, now it was time to sleep.

Friday: You are here
Saturday: Come and take a long drive with me
Sunday:  One last stop before leaving the mountains

A Rural Kind of Evening

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Rural Twilight

These have been interesting times for me over the last two weeks.  There has been a lot going on in pretty much every aspect of my life since the last trek to the Blue Ridge Parkway a couple of weeks ago.  Last weekend, there just wasn't time to get out and do any photography.  This weekend, I had a little bit of time, but not too much.  The problem this weekend was the weather.  The forecast pretty much called for very little to no clouds for the good parts of the day.  The good parts are the ends at sunrise and sunset.  I was pretty much set on not going out to get any pictures this weekend, which was fine.  I still had a good many from the Parkway to handle my daily Instagram posts.

I did wake up around 5am on Saturday morning to check the weather since there was a chance of a decent sunrise in the Piedmont.  I wasn't sure where I would go, but I wanted to be able to get out and do something if the weather looked promising.  The reports were pretty dismal though.  I saw no clouds, and the sunrise forecast had gone pretty blah overnight.  I turned the alarm off and went back to sleep.

When I finally woke up, I wasn't even thinking about doing pictures.  Toni, Sierra, and I went out and visited the book store, went to a movie, and then had dinner.  All the while there were pretty nice clouds that developed in the sky.  Unfortunately, the sun was high in the sky, and while the clouds were nice, the lighting was harsh and flat.  Toni kept telling me to go and work on some pictures, but with the existing lighting I had no interest in shooting anything.  I was hoping that the clouds would hold out till sunset as they would look really good then.

When we got home after dinner I started to look at the weather forecast.  It wasn't really looking promising for clouds, and the sky was fairly empty at this point.  The sunset forecast, however, gave me a little hope for some color in the sky.  It might not be much, but it was worth going out and trying.

The Simple Life

Now I needed to come up with a location to go.  I have been trying to shoot a barn nearby for several months now, and I keep getting stymied by the sky at every turn.  I have been trying mostly in the morning for a sunrise behind the barn.  The idea has always been to get there long before the sun comes up and trying to capture some interesting colors in the sky, while still being able to expose for details in the barn.  Twice now I've tried that and failed.  I have also been out trying for some cloudy shots, but to no avail.  It has been about 4 years since I have successfully shot this barn, and I wanted to get it in the summer before the trees started to change, or shed their leaves.

I went ahead and set my course for the barn off of Union Cross Rd in Forsyth County.  My thought was I would probably get there and turn around, or sit for a while before deciding to give up.  I know, this is a terrible attitude to have, but honestly, I didn't really feel like going out.  Had it not been for Toni prodding me, and my memory of many landscape photographers' vlogs talking about going even when you don't want to, I would have stayed home.  Even if I didn't get anything, the weather was nice and it would be nice to get behind the camera for a short time if nothing else.

When I arrived, the lighting was actually pretty good on the barn with the setting sun lighting the face.  I went ahead and got the camera out and fitted my 70-200mm lens with the Sigh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer.  I actually stayed across the road to get the composition that I wanted.  Since there was not much interest in the sky, I wanted to minimize the amount of sky that I included in the shot.  I mainly wanted to get the barn, and the tree that stood next to it.  The plan here was to shoot a color image of the barn, but when I got home and looked at it, the colors were just lacking something.  I liked the lighting and composition though.  I decided to see how the sky would stand a monochrome conversion.

Once I got the conversion started, I could tell that the clouds were a little more visible, and the textures of the wood and crops stood out more.  I worked with the contrasts and tonal relationships until I was happy with the image.  It wasn't what I had envisioned when I shot the scene, but it wasn't bad either.  It was a good start to the evening.

Carolina Farm

The sun was dropping now, and the lighting was improving.  The clouds were also coming into play above the barn.  I flipped the camera on its side and framed up a shot that captured the barn, tree, and the clouds above.  I was really liking this composition.  However, when I was looking in the review after the exposure was made, I realized something.  In my excitement to set the shot up, I had missed a power line right at the top third point, which is why I missed it.  I lined up perfectly with the grid lines in my preview screen.  I was going to need to get to the other side of the road and shoot under the power line.

When I got there, I knew that the long lens was the wrong choice for my new location.  I quickly swapped out to my 24-70mm lens and swapped the Color Combo Polarizer over as well.  I recomposed and found roughly the same image at 35mm that I had found at 70mm earlier.  This is the power of lenses, I can get the same compositions from wildly different positions.  I was also able to get a bit more sky and foreground in this image with the perspective change.  I grabbed a few exposures as the clouds moved across the sky.

I continued to shoot different compositions as the sun faded to my rear.  I was a little disappointed to see the best cloud formation in the sky, and also the best lit one, was to the South.  There was nothing at all to put under that patch of sky except a line of trees and a power pole with a lot of power lines draping across the scene.  This just wouldn't work at all.  Oh well, I had a nice barn to work with.

As the sun dropped out of sight to my rear, the colors started to change up significantly.  There were purples in the sky now, and the twilight sky was upon us.  I set up a few different shots, and exposed as close to the right of the histogram as possible without blowing the image out.  It looked terrible in the review image, but I knew that would be the case.  I needed it slightly overexposed so that I could keep the detail in the barn, and I could recover the sky detail easy enough in Lightroom.  I wasn't sure how any of these would turn out, but I knew if they worked, I would have something entirely different from anything that I had shot before.

When I got home and started to process it, it took a minute or two to start seeing the colors develop that I had seen while shooting the image.  What would normally take 5-10 minutes, probably took about 15 minutes to process.  I really started to see the possibility of this one looking like what I had envisioned while shooting the image.  Yes, this one might be a little more "worked" than most of my images, but I felt that it deserved a little extra processing to be true to my vision.  It is not manipulated, and is not a composite.  It isn't even an HDR image.  What it has turned into is a highly saturated image that has been dodged and burned to bring out the details that I found important to the image.  It is a true representation of the actual scene, and is spot on with how I interpreted the scene at the time.  

Just as I was about to pack up the camera, I started looking for the moon which was full.  I knew it would be coming up very soon, and it should be near the barn.  If I was lucky, I would get the opportunity to shoot the mood with the barn composition I had set up.  Unfortunately, it was a bit far to the right for that to happen.  I did move my position and shoot the barn square from the front with the moon just to the right.  The composition was weak, and there was really no excitement in the image.  It turned out to be one that I left in the discard file.  I added my 2x teleconverter and tried for a moon shot at 400mm just because it was rather clear looking.  It turned out pretty good, but I have just never really cared for moon shots that aren't a part of a complete composition.  It was just a moon, and it was no better, or any different, than any of the other hundred moon shots I have seen.  It fell to the discard pile as well. 

At the end of the evening, I had shot 59 frames of this barn and the moon.  I knew I didn't want my normal 10% cut to be keepers since this was just a single subject.  I was actually looking for one, maybe two images to keep.  In the end, I found that I really liked three images.  They were all quite different, and represented a different story of the barn.  I was happy keeping all three of the images and sharing them with you.

Topsail Island: Part 4

Thursday, June 21, 2018

A Rosy Outlook

When we last left our band of vacationers Toni was sick, and the girls were waterlogged, and well rested from multiple mornings sleeping in.  My camera was left outside like it had done something bad inside, and the forecast was set for a decent sunrise.  I had found my beach groove sometime during the day on Wednesday and I was ready to get out and have a great morning as the sun was rising.

I got up at 4:45 so that I could be out plenty early just in case the camera decided to fog over again.  I started to look for a good location to set up as I took stock of the sky.  To my pleasure, there were clouds in the sky today, and it appeared as though there was only a thin strip at the horizon.  This meant that there was a good chance at some good color in the sky.  I had played out the tide pools already and was not wanting to go that route again so soon.  I was still looking for some beach grass on the dunes to put under a great sky, and found some just North of the motel.

Now for those of you who are worried that I am trampling all over the dunes to get my shots, I assure you that I am only using access points for the boardwalks from the other houses which are cut into the dunes.  I know how delicate they are and have no want to disturb them.  I do really enjoy photographing them though, and that was just what I did on Thursday morning.

With my location chosen, I needed to choose a composition.  I wasn't needing to go too wide here, so I chose my workhorse 24-70mm lens and decided that I would leave the polarizer off.  It is of limited use shooting into, or directly away from the sun anyway.  I got into position and found my composition and waited.  The sky was starting to show some color, but not nearly as much as I was hoping for.  I continued to shoot and eventually saw that the sun was coming over the clouds so I moved slightly to put the sun between blades of grass.  I liked the idea, but the shot lacked balance, so I recomposed and moved the sun over to the negative space to the right.  Right after I did that the sky erupted in color!  This was the situation I had been waiting for all week long.  No longer did I need to try so hard to get the color to show up, I just had to point and shoot.

Top Of the Morning

As I was shooting the rising sun, I saw above me that the sky was blue.  Now when shooting sunrises and sunsets it is always beneficial to get sections of blue sky for contrast an color balance.  I had my opportunity here, so I flipped the camera on its side and recomposed once again.  I actually really loved this shot, and could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I shot a few frames while the colors faded away.  I had no issue that it was a short lives sunrise, this was the best one I had seen at the beach in some time, and I was happy with it.

I walked around a little bit looking for other photographs to shoot, but with the increasing clouds I could tell that I was done.  That is the thing about beach photography...completely cloudy days are not my friend at the coast.  I need drama in the sky, and I just wasn't going to get that this morning, but I had a handful of really great pictures that I was excited to see processed.

When I got back to the room, Toni was still in bed, Hannah was still asleep, and Sierra jumped out of the bed and said she was ready to go to the Sea Turtle Rescue Hospital.  This was at 7ish in the morning, so I will give her credit.  Old Farts: 1, Curtain Climbers: 1.  It was a dead tie for the day.  When I informed her that they didn't open until noon, she looked quizzically at me and crawled right back into bed fully dressed to go out.  I'm still giving her credit for the early rise though.

I sat down at the table and got my cleaning supplies out.  It was time to do the daily wipe down of the camera and equipment that I had used.  I was getting rather proficient with this part of the morning.  I packed everything back up and figured that it would probably be there till tomorrow morning.  I knew that there was the possibility of storms this evening and that usually means some good clouds.  However, I was committed to take the girls to the Rescue Hospital and take them for min golf.  There was going to be a dinner in there as well, so I wasn't really expecting to be back in time to do anything near sunset.

Well, things don't always go as planned, and sometimes that is a good thing.  The Sea Turtle tour only took about an hour as opposed to the several that I was thinking it would take.  With the heat of the day, Thelma and Louise only wanted to play one round of golf which was great by me.  I've learned that I have no patience when it comes to getting a little ball in a hole.  I'm still holding my position on golf.  After you hit it as hard as you can, if you find it, you win.  Simple rules, and still has a level of difficulty to make it interesting...but I digress.

It was too early for dinner at this point, and the Bobsie Twins had eaten donuts for lunch.  It was vacation, so sue me!  I'll make Sierra eat extra green beans this week.  We went ahead and headed back to the room.  They were wanting to go down to the beach and swim.  I stayed on the deck to watch them and so I could be close to Toni who was still pretty much bed ridden at this point.  When they returned to the room it was decided that dinner would be sandwiches that were bought for lunches so I didn't have to make the 20 minute drive into town for food.  That opened things up for the possibility of a hike down to the Southern tip of the island.

Southern Tip of Topsail

This was the area that Toni had run to a few days before, and the girls had walked down there the next day.  It was my turn now, and I set out around 6:45 so that I could get there in plenty of time for golden hour and ultimately sunset.  One thing that I noticed as I made my way South was that the wind was getting more and more powerful as there was less and less land to block it.  It was very similar to the first evening on the island and I was a little hesitant to pull the camera out of the bag for fear of the sand getting into every nook and cranny.  But, this was going to be my last chance to shoot a sunset over the dunes, so I continued on.

I found another tide pool that was showing at low tide, and above it was a gorgeous cloud formation.  This was as good a reason as any to get the camera out and start working on some compositions.  I chose to go with my 24-70mm due to its versatility and a close second reason was a little more protective lens hood over my wider angle lenses.  I worked around trying to find a composition that worked that didn't include my shadow (the sun was at my back for a change).  I started to find my groove with daytime beach photography and the frames started adding up.

Let it Wash Over Me

I was really hoping for some more foreground interest out here, but the beach was pretty clean and unmolested.  I opted to use the water as a foreground which is a little risky with the sand being pulled out from under the tripod legs at times.  It is entirely possible that a camera could be knocked over, or pulled over from the current.  That meant I had to be really careful with how things were progressing.  The clouds were great and I was all alone in the world at what seemed like the edge of that world.  It was a really nice experience, and I reveled in it.

Atlantic Caress

I got progressively more and more brave about shooting in the water.  Eventually I was standing in the surf and had found out just how much pressure to apply to keep the tripod grounded in the surf.  This allowed me to be able to get further in the water, which was feeling pretty good on my feet.  I was watching the clouds and was realizing that there was the potential for a pretty good sunset over the dunes.  I decided it was time to abandon shooting the clouds over the water and start to concentrate on the dunes which were looking pretty spectacular already.

Topsail's Coastline

As I started to figure out the best way to capture the dunes, I realized that the sun was still much too high up in the sky to be effectively photographed.  I once again turned my attention North where the clouds were quite impressive.  They were starting to take on the warm colors from the sun already.  I found a patch of greenery on a small dune and worked out a few shots from there.  I was still getting excited about the possibility of a phenomenal sunset and was rather preoccupied with that through much of this series of photographs.

Evening at the Dunes

The time that I had been waiting for was finally here. The sun was low enough in the sky that I could start making exposures.  While I would have liked to have used one of my Singh-Ray ND Grads here, I wasn't willing to expose them to the sand that was blowing so fiercely.  I was counting on the lens hood to protect the front element with the polarizer attached.  While setting up my first of the sunset dune pictures I gave the polarizer a twist to see just how advantageous it would be shooting directly into the sun.  In a surprise twist, it did actually add some color to the sky, so I left it on.

The real trick here was to expose for the highlights which are impossible to recover after the fact.  The plan was to eek out the details with Lightroom in lieu of using the filters. With the first exposure over the dunes I could see that I had enough information on the histogram that I should be able to recover the shadow details without any problem.  I was getting excited about the light show that was about to begin.  It is rare for me to shoot a sunset, yet they are quite easy to read since they start with a lit sky.  Sunrises are all about guess work until  first light hits.

Driftwood Ripples

I continued to work around the dunes as the sun was dropping.  When I found a composition that didn't include the sun I would take the shot.  There were lots of odds and ends that made for interesting foregrounds when shooting into the dunes.  With the wind howling about, the sand was getting some nice waves and patterns developing.  I used those as leading lines. and repeating patterns to lead eyes into a photo.  The bits of driftwood added to the scene in many cases as well.  My focus was on the sky though, and I was seeing some pretty amazing stuff developing in the heavens.

Coastal Mohawk

There are just some days you are living right and good things happen.  This was apparently one of those days because I had several great opportunities to shoot some wonderful dunes, and the sky was getting really interesting above.  I was starting to see a bunch of colors developing which indicated things were going to get interesting quickly.  While I was waiting on one scene to develop, I moved my position ever so slightly and shot this interesting dune with a tuft of grass down the middle.  It turned out so well that I flipped the camera and tried it again as a portrait shot.

Wind in Your Hair

By this point the lighting was getting dim and the wind was still a problem.  When shooting something like tall grass in the wind with dim light, motion blur becomes a tremendous issue.  I knew I wasn't going to get tack sharp blades of grass in this wind, but I wanted to minimize the motion.  I had already upped the ISO on the camera to 400, and was now bumping it up to 800 in order to get a relatively quick shutter.  It seemed to work and allowed me to render the tall grass as slightly blurred to indicate the wind, but sharp enough to not be distracting.  It was a fine balancing act for sure.  The sun was steadily dropping and I was seeing my chance for the shot I had set up originally.  I got the camera back in position and was still using this one mound of sand, but shooting in a different direction.

End of Days

The histogram was showing me that I was getting all of the information that I was needing at this point.  The sky was looking amazing with areas of blue, gold, and even red and orange.  There was so much visual interest in the clouds that I could barely contain myself.  I shot several frames with the hope of getting the grass to stand still since the wind was actually starting to die down.  This was the way to end a day with a camera!

I was satisfied at this point.  This had been a tremendous day for both sunrises and sunsets.  I had been out and captured both of them successfully, which is all I can ask.  Now, it was time to make the mile walk back to the room.  Man, that was a long walk!

When I arrived, I found the room dark except for the television.  Toni and the girls were all in bed with the lights out.  Old Farts: 1, Eye Rollers: 0.  I had redeemed myself from this morning!  I turned on a small desk lamp and started the process of cleaning the camera for the second time in the same day.  The tripod was in bad shape from where I had dropped it to the ground to get low a few times.  The lever locks were all gritty with sand and I needed to get that out.  That meant a trip to the tub to rinse all of the joints out to ensure smooth operation. 

I got everything packed up and ready for the next morning.  The freshly cleaned camera went straight outside once again to stay the night.  The morning was looking less than ideal for a sunrise, but I had been out every day so far and there was no reason to skip a day.

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday <--- You are here
Friday