A Day Hike at South Mountain

March 27, 2016

With Spring here, I've been spending most of my free time getting back into cycling for the season.  However, I don't want to let my photography fall by the wayside as it has in the past, so with the roads too wet to go riding today, I decided that I would make much better use of my time by going out and hiking to take advantage of the heavily overcast day.  I've been wanting to get back to South Mountain State Park for a few weeks now since I've only been there one other time several years ago.  With conditions good for that location, I decided to make the two hour trip to go and spend some time around the rapids.  There is also a very sizable waterfall in this park, but one that I've never been too fond of.  There is not much character to it, and there is a viewing platform that really gets in the way of any workable composition.  Another pitfall to this waterfall is that it is always pretty crowded in this park, and today was no different.

Shinny Creek

Having scouted this park before, I knew that I wasn't going to need to waste my time with High Shoals Falls like I did the last time.  I knew that where I needed to focus my time and energy was the rapids along the trails.  About a half mile or so from the parking area, I knew there was a really good access point to a section of Shinny Creek which is downstream of the main falls.  It took no time at all to get there, and it was pretty easy to get down into the water from the trail.  The best part about this location is that despite the park being rather full for a holiday Sunday, there was nobody bothering to even look at this section of the water.  It was just me and my camera, and a few rain drops here and there.  I worked several different compositions of this group of rapids trying to create a rhythm around the rocks, and maintain a sense of scale and depth.  I captured probably a dozen or so frames from this section before landing on this particular composition.  It had everything that I wanted in the picture...the pure water in the foreground, the rapids caressing
the rocks, leading into the distant trees.  If nothing else, this was the shot that I came out here to get today.

After I was satisfied with the photograph, I packed everything up and continued on down the trail.  I was looking for more than just water subjects, but the woods were just too complex and haphazard for me to get any good compositions out of the few interesting trees I found.  I found that my best options were sticking with the water along the trails.  It wasn't long before I found another little cutoff where there were two small waterfalls side by side.  When I say small, I am talking about just a couple of feet high.  They were small, but full of character, and well worth the time to put together some compositions.

Falling Abstract

In order to make the compositions work, from the distance I was having to shoot from, I had one option for a lens.  I fit my long 70-200mm and went all the way to the long end to capture my first shot...an intimate view of a light spray coming off of the rocky ledge with a bit more powerful flow just to the rear.  This is one of those shots that Toni would always point out to me, and just as if she had been along for the hike today, I heard her voice directing my eye.  I think that it paid off too.  This one is less about the water, and more about the shapes and textures.  Sometimes it is a lot of fun to shoot abstract landscapes!

In the Groove

The sibling waterfall to the left was a little more straightforward in composition, but again, it was so small that I needed just about all of the reach of my long lens to capture it.  What I really liked about this one was the hidden textures under the water that gave each cascade it's own identity.  There was just something peaceful about this particular cascade.  I tried several different compositions with this one, but decided that my first instinct was the best out of all my choices.  The different versions I shot of this one prompted me to return to the one to the right and try a slightly different frame on it.

Off the Ledge

What I saw when I flipped the camera over to landscape orientation looked so natural, I knew I had a winner with this composition.  I fine tuned things, and got my exposure dialed in for the water, and ultimately shot this one.  It is much less abstract that the first version, but it still lacks a lot of scale cues which I found to be an important aspect to this one.  It forces the viewer to look at it in more detail to find the cues available as to its scale.

This was only a couple of very small cascades hidden in the rather large creek, but after about 40 minutes or so, I was satisfied that I had done them justice.  I pulled the camera apart and loaded the bag back up once again before continuing on my hike.  I was getting close to the main waterfall, which I had no intention of photographing.  However, there was a small one just before the stair climb to the main falls that I wanted to try photographing.  When I approached it, I could see that the water was flowing very nicely over the rocks, and it looked quite like a promising picture.  The problem that I had was there was a boardwalk right in front of it, that I could shoot from, but I wasn't able to get the framing quite right.  I looked around to see if there was a way to get down in front of the boardwalk in order to capture the composition I wanted.  There was just no safe way to get where I needed to be, and I wasn't quite willing to put myself in a position to fall in the water today.  With several groups walking back from High Shoals Falls, I decided to let this particular waterfall go.  There was going to be just too much work involved for not that big of a payoff in the end.

Liquid Gold

On my return hike, I took the nature trail spur off of the main trail.  There was an access point to the creek that lead right to a nice little section of rocks in the middle of the water flow.  The moss and mineral buildup gave the scene almost a marbled look in places.  I decided that this would be worth a shot or two...maybe more.  I started with my 24-70mm lens, but decided that I wasn't able to simplify the image to what my eyes were seeing.  I needed to narrow my field by fitting my 70-200mm lens instead.  Once I did that, things really came together in my viewfinder.  I was able to work several different compositions to highlight what I was seeing.  What you see above was my initial concept in portrait form.  This was precisely the section of water that had caught my eye, and it was all I wanted to include in the frame.  When I was reviewing the image though, I could see the potential for a landscape view as well, so I flipped the camera over to see what that would yield.

Always in a Rush

I have to admit, my first idea was pretty good with this scene, but my second attempt turned out pretty good as well.  It just goes to show that sometimes your first idea is the best, but other times, it is a very good idea to play around with a scene to see what else you can come up with.  Either way, I'm very happy that I took the time to work this section of water that would have been easily passed by.

At the end of the day, I had shot 64 frames and was thinking that I might have about four good images.  I was quite surprised when I ended up with six that I thought had strong merit.  There will be a couple of new additions to the White Water Gallery Room.

Outer Banks Getaway

February 19-21

It has been about six years since I've been to the beach.  I'm not exactly what you would call a beach person, and neither is Toni.  However, I do enjoy photographing some different scenery from time to time.  The opportunity came up to be able to go for a quick little weekend getaway, and instead of our normal mountain excursion, we decided to head to the coast.  Just to change things up, we decided to go to the Outer Banks instead of Carolina Beach where we would typically go.  The weather was looking pretty decent with moderate temperatures and roughly 40-70% cloud cover for the entire weekend.  That would mean very favorable conditions for photography.

Since we had to leave after I got off from work on Friday, we got to the beach much too late to do anything except for settle into the room and get ready for the next morning.  The weather was still looking promising, if not a little cold in the morning.  I decided that I would get up about an hour and a half before sunrise, so that I could be out on the beach in plenty of time to find some workable compositions.  This is part of the dedication of a photographer, I would have much rather slept in, and enjoyed the sounds of the crashing waves as I woke up.  Instead, I had an alarm blaring in my ear.

Holding Back the Sun

I bundled up best I could with the clothes that I had and headed out for first light.  I have always enjoyed working with the fences at the beach, and this particular Nags Head coastline had plenty to work with.  I hunkered down in the sand and framed a shot that took advantage of the pickets and waited.  Using my 24-70mm lens with a 3-Stop Reverse ND grad filter, I was able to capture the first hints of light from the sun which was still well below the horizon.  I was really hoping for an amazing sunrise since there was a hole in the clouds right where the sun would be peeking out, with thick clouds overhead.  I crossed my fingers, but worked with the existing conditions as best I could.

As the light started to change, I decided to switch to a better location that was no longer back lit from street lights.  I moved over to the right about 100 feet, and set up with a slightly different composition.  With the wind gusting to 20mph, I decided it was better not to bother switching lenses, so I kept my original setup on the camera and framed a different composition.  I was still using the ever available fences for foreground interest, but the landscape had changed.

Outer Banks Reflections

As the sun continued its trip to the edge of the water, the clouds started to come alive with color.  This was going to be it!  I don't do a lot of sunrises, and I was starting to think that I was going to get very lucky on this one.  Just in case things changed though, I continued to work the conditions as they changed.  As it turns out, Outer Banks Reflections is my favorite from this morning, and quite possibly from the entire weekend.  It really did come together very nicely, and while the sun wasn't working its magic on the dense clouds above, the reflections in the water make up for it I think.

Morning Surf

As the sun climbed higher and higher, the clouds never did change color, and they eventually started getting darker.  With the sun at the base of the clouds, I realized that I wasn't going to get the sunrise I was hoping for. However, I was getting some great reflections in the water, and the waves were working out nicely for me as well.  I don't do sunrises often, but I do enjoy capturing the moments when I can.

With the sun's direct involvement in my photographs done, I started to look around for other possibilities that might present themselves.  Looking out over the water was no longer all that interesting, so I looked behind me.  As it turned out, the thick clouds above me, were actually starting to get rather interesting with the back light from the sun.  Fortunately, there were a few really interesting beach houses that caught my eye, and gave me a composition beneath the clouds to work with.

OBX Cottages

As you can see, I really do like my fences!  They provide great leading lines, as well as repeating graphical elements.  I was able to incorporate them in this composition that highlighted a sand colored house.  While the yellow typically would just blend in with the sandy surroundings, I felt with the blue tones in the clouds above, and the blue house to the side, I could achieve a very balanced color pallet.  To add to the serenity, I had the repeating patters of the fences leading to a bookend that was a wooden walkway to the left.  This composition just felt right, and was a natural shot.

A Commanding View

The clouds were still rather remarkable, so I continued to find beach houses to place beneath them.  On the other side of the hotel, I found this unique house that seemed to really stick out from the crowd.  With the help of a wide angle composition, I was able to really emphasize that visual weight.  The fences again helped me establish where the viewer's eyes should be going.  The clouds even decided to make leading lines to the house I was focusing on.  Yeah, this one actually composed itself it would seem.

I was having fun with the houses, but I wanted to work some with the dunes as well, so I moved off of the beach and found a nice vantage point for a dune.  I'm sure this won't come as a shock, but I found a nice fence to go with the dune when I was looking. I had actually spotted this the night before from the balcony of the hotel.  I wasn't sure how it would work as a picture, but I saw potential in it.

The Dunes

As I was working on the composition for the dune, I realized that I would do better working this from an abstract angle more than a straight up landscape frame of mind.  I looked for shapes and textures more that simply subject matter here.  The hard lines of the fence played well with the cottony feel of the sky above.  The fence also mimicked the grass atop the dune.  The fence dropped where the dune actually rose above, and then the fence balanced itself out on the other side of the frame.  For a simple picture, there is just so much going on with it!  The funny thing about this is I shot it from the parking lot of the hotel, while talking to one of the guests who was visiting OBX from Virginia.

With the conversation over, the picture completed, and Toni back from her morning run, it was time for me to pack it in and go eat breakfast.  It was about 8am at this point, and I was getting hungry.  After breakfast, Toni and I prepared for our day which would include going out exploring to see what we could see.  The clouds that had been so promising in the forecast had decided to become a featureless overcast, so I wasn't thinking too much about photography at this point, but we were going on a road trip anyway.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

One of the stops that we made was to the Bodie Island Lighthouse.  This was one of the primary reasons for the trip to OBX.  Toni hasn't seen any of the NC lighthouses and she wanted to rectify that situation.  Nags Head was within easy driving range of two different lighthouses.  Bodie Island was one, and there was another located in Manteo.  On our first pass on each I didn't even get the camera out, we just walked around looked at the landmarks.  However, as the day moved along, the sky started to change a bit, and I decided to head back to Bodie Island once again.  We got there, and I got the camera put together very quickly, using my 16-35mm lens for the perspective that I wanted.  I quickly found a composition using a pair of trees to the left for scale and balance in the frame.  The sky was mostly washed out, but there was still some detail left in the clouds, which I exposed for.  After two initial shots, I moved to some better compositions, but the clouds had changed up, and the detail was all but lost.  The temperature was dropping, and I wasn't seeing much promise in the sky, so we decided to head on back to the room and start thinking about dinner.  By the way, NOTHING is open on the Outer Banks in the off season, but that is another story, for another time.

The day was done photographically.  I wasn't sure what I had gotten, or if I had gotten anything at all.  Looking back in the camera's LCD wasn't really telling me much since I shoot in a low contrast, low saturation format.  Everything just looked blah and washed out.  I was hoping that for nearly 70 frames shot, I would have something usable.

The next morning started out much the same as Saturday did.  I woke up about 5:15 and checked the weather.  The hourly forecast was calling for 45% cloud cover, which would be ideal for my purposes.  However, looking out of the window of the hotel room, I found very little clouds in the sky.  In fact, I saw not a single cloud.  I wasn't going to miss out on my last day of coastal photography, so I went out anyway.  Knowing that I wouldn't be able to include much of the sky...if any, I chose to fit my 70-200mm lens which would only pick out a small portion of the horizon which would have some color to it.

Lighting the Sky

Pulling a trick out of my book from years ago, I really focused in on the fences this time.  The idea was to have a strong visual interest in the foreground, and the compressed horizon in the distance would provide intense color in the background even though there was only a sliver of actual color to be seen.  Ah, the magic of focal length!  I again used various ND grad filters to control the contrast in the scene and keep the sky from blowing out.  These filters have been invaluable over the years for so many of my photographs.  Short of the polarizer, the ND grads are the most important accessory I carry in my camera bag.

Unable to Continue

The nice thing about such a long lens is that I can pick out just about anything in the landscape and make that my focal point.  I shifted just a few feet to the right for this second picture, but it changed the entire feel and focus of the image.  I'm not sure which I like better, but they sure do illustrate how compositions can change dramatically with just a few steps.  The fallen fence is present in both pictures, but its role is completely different.

Once the sun was up, the little bit of color was gone.  I looked above me, and found that there were very little clouds to be found.  This was disappointing to say the least.  I wasn't ready to call it a day just yet.  I hunted around in an attempt to find some different compositions.

The Pier

One thing that I had found interesting the day before was the pier to the North of the hotel.  The lighting had not been right on it with the cloud cover, but with the sun bathing everything in a warm morning light today, I found a much different character of the pier.  Sadly, there were no clouds behind it, but the tracks from various vehicles made some nice leading lines to the main building, and the pier itself provided a nice color balance through the water.  While not exactly an amazing picture, I do like the overall feel of this image.

With the sun rising ever faster in the sky, I had to work quickly because in no time at all, the sun would be too harsh to be able to do much with.  I worked some more with the fences, but never really found much of interest.  I did notice that there were a few light clouds moving into the area, and I worked quickly to find a composition to fit below the clouds.  The problem was, they were so faint that I wasn't sure I would be able to get them.  My mind went into monochrome mode, and I started shooting some frames thinking about using color filters in the conversion to add a little contrast to the sky.  I wasn't sure if it would work or not, but I gave it a try.

Coastal Neighbors

Beyond the Fence

As it turned out, my idea worked out relatively well.  I found the missing definition in the sky with the red filter, and was able to get a couple of pretty interesting monochrome images to finish out the day.

I had now shot 117 frames over two days.  I wasn't sure exactly what I had, or if any of them would be usable.  I had to fight with conditions that were far from what I was hoping for, or planning for.  Fortunately though, I still have enough tricks up my sleeve to work alternative plans on the fly.  I would have liked to have shot a lot more, but considering the weather, this was a very successful Trek to the coast!

Scouting in Julian

February 7, 2016

I've had some feelers out for quite some time trying to get some new areas to photograph in my catalog.  One lead that I have gotten recently was to head out to Julian, NC where there was a lot of rural landscapes and farm lands.  I was excited to give it a try, but wasn't exactly sure what I was going to need in terms of weather.  I decided to pick a day where we were looking at about 45% cloud cover for the day, which should have given me some nice blue to work with along with some clouds for contrast, and for diffusing of light on the landscape.  Right up until Toni and I left the house, the forecast was looking promising, but the actual conditions at the house were far from ideal.  We decided to plow on anyway, hoping that the conditions would get better as we got closer to Julian.

A Room For Me

My first stop was an old farm house located on Old Julian Rd which looked to be very promising in some scouting pictures I had seen.  As I got there, I could tell that I wasn't going to be able to include the sky because it was a total of wash of gray.  It would have been a great waterfall day, but that wasn't what I was trying to photograph.  I decided that the house was too good to pass up, and I tried to work some intimate compositions where the sky would not be included.  I found this one area on the back of the house which highlighted several different angles, and repeating patterns.  The greenery at the corner of the house made for a very nice visual anchor as well.  This was going to be my only workable composition on this house.  I worked on fine tuning the image from both camera position and focal length.  Once I was happy with the resulting image, it was time for Toni and I to start exploring to see what there was to see.

We saw a lot of great old houses and barns on the roads in and around Julian.  I tried to make some mental notes as we drove around, but pretty much, everywhere you look, there is a potential subject.  The only problem was the sky, which was just not changing at all.  After a while of driving, we came upon what looked to be a vacant house, with a few barns to the rear.  In front of one of the barns was an old tractor that caught my attention.  I decided to give it a try despite the sky, hoping that I would be able to compose some images to avoid the sky as I had with the old house.

Tattered entry

Before I got out to shoot the tractor, I decided it was best to check with the next door neighbor to see if he knew anything about the property.  He seemed nice enough, but did not know much about the owners other than they were not present in the area.  After I explained what I was wanting to do, he decided that I should be OK taking some pictures.  We chatted for a moment and I went to the truck and grabbed my gear to get started.

The compositions became much harder than I had anticipated.  I ended up including the sky in more frames than I wanted to, but there was just no way around it.  I was happy that I was shooting with my 70-200mm lens though, as it didn't include near as much of the sky as a wider lens would have.  I decided after a few minutes to try some intimate shots of the tractor, using only a portion of the barn in the background.

No Worse For the Wear

Just like with the house before, the intimate, tight shot worked out the best for the old tractor.  Had it not been for the red wheels, I would have passed this one by since there was limited rust, and it even look recently used.  However, the red wheels against the gray primer really linked this tractor to the rusty tin barn behind it.  That combination struck a chord with me, and I decided that I liked the concept behind this shot.

Put Away

Before packing my things up, I decided to try a long shot of a composition.  There was a really nice tractor sitting inside of the barn.  Knowing that it was deep in the shadows, and the barn face was a middle tone, and the door to the right was white, I knew that a proper exposure would be difficult at best.  I made some very careful calculations as I was setting the exposure and really worked on maintaining detail in the white door and in the shadowed portion of the barn.  Based on the histogram after I shot the frame, I had captured all of the detail from light to dark.  I just love the resolving capability of this 5DIII I've been shooting with for a couple of years now.  It never ceases to amaze me!

When I was done shooting, I was putting the gear back in the truck and the neighbor came back out and spoke to me once again.  He had an idea for a photo project that he wanted me to take part in.  I won't go into detail about it just yet, but it includes capturing farm life as it was in the 50's.  This fascinates me to no end, as the project will include the barns, the tractors, and the techniques that were done back then.  It will give me an up close and personal experience that I have always wanted to express in my photography, but have never really had that opportunity.  When Spring gets here, we will probably be getting things rolling with the project.  I hope to have a whole series of really cool images from this project to share, and maybe even put on display in the gallery here.

An Early Morning in Yadkin County

February 1, 2016

Yadkin Valley Mill in B&W

I had been watching the weather for several days before this morning hit.  There were going to be clouds over Yadkinville, and they were going to be low clouds.  That normally means lots of texture in the sky.  It also happened that I was going into work late, so I had time to drive out there to give the old feed mill another try.  I keep seeing it from the highway every time I drive down US 421, and it has always captured my attention.  With the large booms, the composition kind of makes itself, but it leaves a lot of open area that can only be filled with the sky.  This means that the sky I choose to photograph under is the most important part of this particular image.  I have tried a lot of different skies, but I haven't quite found the one that I like the best.  This morning was promising to be pretty good!

I woke up early and headed out to the mill in time to photograph the blue hour just in case the clouds would cooperate with me prior to sunrise.  I wasn't sure exactly what would unfold before me, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything since I would be working on a rather tight schedule in order to make it to work on time.  I got there about an hour before sunrise, and got my camera built.  I found my first spot to shoot from and fired off a test exposure at 30 seconds.  It wasn't quite there, so I went ahead and switched to Bulb mode, and tried a few exposures in the 90 and 120 second range.  These were working pretty well, but the clouds were much thicker than I had anticipated.

Yadkin Valley Mill

While I was getting some definition in the clouds, the long shutter speed blurred most of it.  This one exposure actually showed some promise with the swash of light blue against the deeper blue.  The faint reflection of the sun reflecting off of the clouds to the left added just the right amount of complementary color to the sky.  Even the textures were working out pretty well.  It wasn't until I got home and did a monochrome conversion that I found the real personality of this image.  It almost became sinister in appearance, and I liked it!

As the sun came up, I realized that I was going to be hard pressed to get the shot that I was after.  Instead of giving up, I decided to pick out intimate details on the old mill and photograph them instead.  I started along the front of the building where all of the windows were.  It took a little work, but I finally came upon a composition that I liked, so I got it framed up and shot the picture.

Looking Within

This had a lot of things working for it.  First of all, there was the snow at teh base of the window.  This matched nicely with the white in the window frame.  The tin siding is not normally my favorite thing to photograph, so I was very fortunate to have a tree right next to the window, and some errant branches moving into the frame.  This gave me the texture of wood that I love so much in these images.  The color of the trees also helped to balance out the siding and overall neutral tones.

I continued around the building looking for some other subjects to photograph.  I came upon the loading area and found a lot of little odds and ends to play with.  There was a lot going on in here, so I decided to look at things as a graphical design more than anything else.  That was when I started to be able to frame up some different compositions that otherwise would have made no sense.

Neglect

Of these, this one was my favorite.  The colors work very well together, and I liked the fact that the wooden planks work nicely as leading lines into the image.  The rust gives a wonderful texture that compliments the textures of the wood and tin.  The vines encroaching all over give a sense of time passing and lack of use.  This image really does exemplify the "Rustic" theme for me.

While working on these little details, I happened to see that the clouds were starting to break up a little bit.  There was a tree at the corner of the lot that I had been working on with little success that I thought would benefit from the current lighting.  I grabbed my gear and went out to the tree and started to set up some of the compositions I had worked out previously.

The Story

The branches of the tree were so haphazard that I couldn't help but be drawn into it.  The band of blue sky in the background helped to break up the expanse of white in the clouds.  The morning light was still very warm and diffused.  The exposure was simple, it was the composition that was difficult.  I had to avoid a power pole, minimize a shelter, and time the shot so as not to include traffic on the highway to the rear.  That was a lot to consider, but the picture came out as I had visualized despite all of the potential pitfalls.

When I was going through the pictures, Toni saw the tree and told me that I had to name it "Story".  I'm not sure why she came up with that, but since I did shoot the tree primarily because of her little voice in my head, I decided to honor her wish.  This picture is all her!

The morning came to a close much sooner than I had wanted, but it was time to head to work.  I was happy that I had the chance to get out and do a little shooting this morning, and look forward to other chances like this on days I go in late.

A Winter Trek to Stone Mountain

January 28, 2016

A Lonely Bench

This morning started out like most others, I woke up to go to work.  The only difference was I was waking up at 12:30am so I could be at work at 2am.  Yeah, I wasn't too happy about that at all, but as they say...."Duty Calls."  I completed my special assignment, and was done with my work day by 10:30 which left me with a lot of day when I would normally be cooped up in my office.  What to do? What to do?

Well, I had been out several times lately with my camera without any success.  I was really wanting to get some new images added to my gallery, so I kept thinking of places to go.  While working my strange schedule, I was trying to come up with some ideas of places to go, but nothing really popped out at me.  My goal here of late has been to find some old cars to photograph, but I just wasn't feeling like doing that today.  Instead, I was kind of craving the solitude of a hike in the woods.  After a lot of internal debate, I decided that Stone Mountain would be my destination.  If nothing else, I would have my choice of subjects depending on the conditions.  There was everything from waterfalls, to grand landscapes, to intimate landscapes, with a few rustic subjects mixed in for good measure.

After work, I set course to the West and found myself at Stone Mountain before lunch time.  The conditions were perfect for some intimate landscapes, and I was please to see that there was still a lot of snow on the ground.  I quickly decided that my best bet would be to take the low level trails that would lead to the Stone Mountain Falls.  I wasn't interested in photographing the waterfall, but I knew that there should be plenty of subject matter along that trail.

Winter's Failing Grip

My first stop on the trail was the restored homestead just off of the parking lot.  There are several structures there which are interesting to photograph.  The only downfall is they mostly have some sort of display by the front of them.  This gets in the way of photography, and is something that I try to avoid.  I was about to bypass this setting since I had photographed it so much in the past, but as I was crossing the bridge to the trail, I looked back and the view of the main house caught my eye.  I had never shot this with my 70-200mm lens before, and from this distance, that would be a perfect choice.  There was even a good amount of snow at the base of the scene which I had never captured before.  I decided that I should set up and give it a try.  The compositions seemed to come quickly and effectively with my chosen lens.  I found that 100mm was the sweet spot for the composition, and using a CPL filter helped with the contrast of the scene.  I was very happy with the outcome to say the least!

Wooden Embrace

After I got back on the trail, I started to look for some intimate landscapes to shoot.  One of my favorite subjects was along this trail...a tree along the stream with an exposed root system.  I have photographed this many times before, and was looking forward to trying something a little different today.  Unfortunately, the clouds were starting to break up and the sun was shining through.  This was going to make my exposures very difficult with the contrasting light.  Even so, I found my tree and set the camera up using my 16-35mm lens to exaggerate the root system.  I added a CPL filter, but resisted the urge to engage it fully.  Instead, I opted to leave a little bit of the reflection in the water since there was so little water standing.  The hardest part of this shot was waiting until the sun dipped behind some clouds reducing the contrast of the scene.  When it happened, I was ready after several test shots.  Having only a few seconds to work with the good light, I snapped the shot and found that I had nailed the exposure I wanted, and the composition was spot on.  Even the reflection was just right.  Time to pack up and move on.

Mossy Stone

The lighting was getting worse as I got deeper into the park.  I was committed to this route though, and had to stick it out.  I realized that I might just be on a long walk for the fun of it as there was just too much light working through the trees.  Every once in a while I would come across some shaded areas, but rarely was there anything worthwhile in those areas.  At one stream crossing, there were three stones which I had passed by many times before without a second thought.  Today, however, the snow added a dimension to them that gave them a different character.  The fact that they were in the shadows really helped out as well.  I went ahead and set up to see what I could do with them.  I used my 24-70mm lens with an enhancing CPL filter to capture this one.  I chose to shoot vertical to capture the hint of a curve leading out to the trees in the background.  I actually liked the hint of sunlight on the tree trunks as well which help to bring the eyes into the background.

A Slippery Climb

 As I worked my way back to the parking lot the sun started to dip below the horizon of the mountain.  This effectively put my side of the mountain in the shadows.  This worked out great for lighting as everything became nice and diffused.  One stair case that I had gone up originally, now had a certain picturesque quality about it as I came down.  Once at the base, I brought the camera back out and set it up once again as I had on the last location.  While this composition looks very simple, there was a lot of fine tuning that went into how the camera was set up.  I wanted to get the stairs captured all the way to the top, however, the tree to the right tended to cover the top portion.  There was just enough of a void in the leaves to where I could position the upper steps just so, and keep them in the picture.  It took a good bit of fiddling, but I was able to get get it just the way I wanted it, and grab the shot as I had seen it in my head.

A Place to Rest

I was getting close to the truck, but still had to work my way through the old homestead once again.  This time though, the sky was clearing and the clouds provided some nice interest.  The warm light from the low sun, just over the mountain was painting some nice tones on Stone Mountain.  this was going to be my chance to capture the mountain in ways I had not done previously.  Normally, I try to avoid the benches that are set up along the trail, but today, I decided to embrace them.  Using my 24-70mm lens with a regular CPL filter, I was able to capture a composition that included the bench, the sunlit tree, and the distant mountain.  The blue sky with the strands of clouds above completed the scene.  This is probably one of my favorite images I've shot of this mountain.  There is very little that I would change about this one.

Crossing Over

I decided to take the long way back to the truck which took me back into the trails.  I'm glad that I did because I never would have seen several of the bridges along the trail.  As the snow had been melting, it had developed a pattern that resembled teeth along the wooden planks.  When I got to the bridge, the little voice in my head (that sounds like Toni) told me to stop and take a picture of this.  I have to admit, I wasn't sold on the idea, and it took a long time to get the shot set up the way I wanted it.  But, after I found the right location, and found the right focal length on my 24-70mm lens, I decided that Toni was absolutely right about this one.  There was a lot to like about this scene, and it would not have been the same with either more or less snow.  This was "juuuuusssst right."

In fact, I was having so much fun with this bridge, when I came upon the next one, I automatically started looking at it for a composition.  From a distance, it didn't look all that exciting.  However, once I got up close to it, I found something that made this bridge pop.

Behind the Curtain

The runoff from the rocks in the background had been freezing for the last week or so and had created an icy curtain just on the other side of the bridge.  This was the eye candy that the bridge was going to lead to.  Of course, it still had the neat repeating patterns of snow on the wooden planks, but without the icy curtain, there wasn't much to this bridge.  The last one might have taken a long time to compose, but this one felt like it took about twice as long.  I'm not sure what the difficulty was, but I just couldn't find the right perspective for the longest time.  When I did finally decide what elements to include and how to include them, it fell into place quite nicely.  I'm glad that I put that extra effort into making this photograph work.

At the end of the day, I had shot 63 frames in about 5 hours.  I was optimistically expecting to have about six keepers out of that when I was finished editing.  To my surprise, I ended up with eight photographs that I was happy enough with to keep.  After a week of less than stellar conditions for my camera, I was starting to wonder if I was losing my touch.  It was very nice to be able to get out and really concentrate on creating photographs again, and make them work out as well as they did.  I guess in the long run, getting up at 12:30 this morning wasn't a bad thing after all.

Getting Lost in Surry County

January 16, 2016

Sit a Spell

It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but I decided that as the day came to a close, I would head out and try to capture some pictures with the last bit of light.  I had no particular destination in mind, but I wanted to explore in some areas I haven't been before.  I picked North as my general direction and skirted along the back roads past Walnut Cove.  I eventually found myself on Hwy 772 going into Surry County.  There were a lot of old barns out that way, but what I was really wanting was some old cars to photograph.  I happened to find one, but the sun was on the wrong side, so a picture wouldn't work out very well.  I did file it in my mind for another time though!

I had been driving for nearly a hour and was about to hang it up for the day when I came across an old house with a few barns nearby just sitting all alone on the side of the road.  This one called out for me!  I got the camera built quickly because the light was fading fast.  I started out with some general compositions that lead me to the opening picture for this entry.  The clouds looked amazing with just the right amount of texture, and there was still enough light on the house and barn to keep it interesting.  I worked on fine tuning the compositions quickly and I moved on to something different.

Pastels by the Porch

The light was changing almost by the second, and I noticed that there was a good deal of pink sneaking into the sky above.  I went back to the compositions that I knew would work and shot them again with the color in the sky.  I'm still not sure which I like better, but I think that they both have very different emotions behind them.  They are strong enough to stand on their own individual merits I think.

I continued to shoot different images as the light changed.  I was also keeping an eye out behind me where the sun was dipping down to the horizon.  I didn't want to miss anything special.  As the sun dropped, I noticed that it was actually going into a dip in the landscape that was highlighted by the roadway.  This was going to make for an interesting picture if I could compose it just right.  There was no time for filters, so I just shot it with what I had available at the time, which was a bare 24-70mm lens.

Smoldering Skies

Not having a grad filter on, made the exposure a little complicated.  I wanted to maintain lots of detail in the foreground since there was a house in it.  I had to really watch the histogram as I selected the right exposure.  When I was satisfied that I had plenty of detail on both sides, I released the shutter.  To my surprise, the image popped up on the LCD with the actual recorded histogram and it looked like I had nailed the exposure.  I was going to have to wait until I got home to really see, and as you can see above, I got pretty close.

With the sun now out of the picture (pun intended), I turned my attention again to the other side of the sky.  There was still some color above, and the light was still adequate and soft on the property.  I went back to working other compositions to take advantage of what I had before me.

Boarded Up

The house itself was a little on the plain side, but the collapsed front porch really caught my attention.  It gave it character, but there still wasn't enough there to carry an entire picture.  Now with the sky changing colors, there was some more visual interest to work with, and once I included the bare tree to the left as another point of interest, the composition began to work a little better.  The star of it is still the house, but there is a lot more to this picture than just the house.

Having given the house the solo treatment, I decided that I would also work the barn on the hill by itself as well.  The color in the sky was fading, but the clouds were still heavy and full of soft textures.  For those who live in NC, this sky just looked like a snow sky, and I wanted to incorporate that into a picture with the barn which was full of warm tones.

A Winter Sky

The soft blues of the sky dominate the majority of the frame, but the warm tones of the barn, both red and yellow help to balance the color palette.  The dormant grasses at the foreground help with that as well.  A visual balance is provided by the distant roof of the next barn.  This makes for a simple picture, but one with a lot to look at...which is just how I like them.

I was probably out on this property for about 45 minutes.  In that time, I shot 24 frames.  I was only expecting a couple of pictures to turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few of them turned out much better than I had anticipated.  One of the first pictures I shot, I had envisioned in monochrome to make the best use out of the contrast in the sky.  When I started going through the pictures in the final editing process, I made the conversion and was very happy with the outcome.

Sit a Spell in B&W

The monochrome treatment really seems to take the viewer back in time.  It adjusts the feel of the scene, and sparks the emotions more effectively than the color version.  While I like both, the monochrome is my favorite of the two, and actually, this is my favorite from the day.

Anniversary Trekking in Ashe County

January 08-12, 2016

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

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

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

Days Gone By

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

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

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

Rust and Splinters

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

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

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

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

The Dilapidated Duo

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

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

Little Secrets

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

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


Side note...

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

Little Secrets in B&W

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

Back to the story...

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

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

The Mountain Man Can

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

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

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

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

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

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