Rain, Rain... stick around:)

I don't mind the rain.   The rain is beneficial to our environment and enjoyment in more ways than one.  It gives all the plants what they need to thrive, and washes away everything that needs washed away.  It also has an uncanny ability to rid the Blue Ridge Parkway of all the traffic, and allows us to experience state parks without any other people:)

Today I set off for Stone Mountain State Park in North Carolina.  It borders the Parkway.  There wasn't a soul at the parking lot, which brought me great joy... I get to hang out in the forest without anyone else:)

Aside from the occasional turtle or fish, I pretty much did have the place to myself.  I really don't know why anyone would be out there, the rain was coming down HARD, hard enough that the rain caused my camera(the Pentax) to lose it's ability to control the lens' aperture.  It was at that point when I decided I should pack it out.  Fortunately I managed a handful of photographs first:)

Mist at Fox Hunter's Paradise

Flourishing Fungus near the trailhead

A windy creek near the path

Middle Falls - Stone Mountain State Park

A raging and muddy Big Pine Creek(shot from a bridge on the parkway)

Once in a Red Moon...

Ok so I don't have any cool racing photos to show you... but I can say I was in one heck of a hurry after trying to go through Hillsville VA on the opening day of the Flea Market.  Even at 6am the bustle of the town and people setting up booths were really slowing things down.  
After making it out of Hillsville, and onto an open two lane highway, things were going well and I was on time to make it to Rocky Knob to catch the sun breaking the horizon. 
The fog was thick, thick enough to make it so my reaction time was longer than the distance I could see at the speed I was going(basically if a deer popped out it's 'goodbye')

About 3 miles from the top of the knob, I noticed the moon very graciously setting over nice rows of trees and fog.  I stopped the car and started taking some shots handheld with the Pentax K20d and an old Sears 135mm 2.8.  The crop factor of this camera body and the length and superb sharpness of this old lens make for a nice combo when shooting telephoto landscapes.  To get the composition below, I ended up sprinting down the parkway to get into a better position. I am glad I spent the time to stop and shoot this moonset, because the lens of the Sears 135mm struggles with flare when shooting into the sun, so my results were going to be better in a lower dynamic range/no flare situation.

The cool part about this is that, when I composed the moon photo, I actually couldn't make out what was in the foreground fog... turns out that an old run down building sits there(lucky me:)

 

 

Have a great and safe weekend!!

 

 

Cumberland Knob Macro Photography

Yesterday I had the whole day off!!(sort of).  I took the gf to work, grabbed the camera, and headed down to the Cumberland Knob in North Carolina.  I made sure to bring my almost functioning Tokina 100mm 2.8 Macro(I got it sandy at the beach and now it won't focus to infinity:(.
 The Cumberland Knob is located just south of the V.A./N.C. line on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  There you will find a large picnic area, a 2.5 mile hiking trail, an awesome little creek at the bottom of a ravine, and TONS of macro opportunities!  I also had the (soon to be replaced) Canon 24mm 2.8, and the Sigma 50mm 1.4.

I like shooting macro for a couple of reasons... One is, the 'Grand Vista' doesn't happen as often in the Southeast as it did back home, so I try to 'focus' on different, smaller things.  The other reason is that I when I look through a macro lens at full magnification, I feel like I can see the backbone of our entire ecosystem, and that is pretty cool.  Enjoy...



Close Focus with the Sigma provides wonderful bokeh




It's difficult to match up the plane of focus with the subject sometimes(notice the blurry edges of the web)




A single strand of webbing crosses in front of a completed web in the background.




The green here is holding on strong, but the yellow is showing its face in spots..






Some TINY mushrooms growing on top of a stump.



This was fun to photograph.  I used live view and the Canon Depth of Field Preview to help me select the perfect focus point and aperture.





I had the pleasure of watching a spider make one of these tightly wound webs.



He hangs in a heart:)

DUN DUN DUN!!!  Fall is coming!!

A colorful leaf(shot with 24mm)

(shot with Sigma 50mm)

A mushroom and a rock sharing some space on the forest floor.

A splash of bright yellow in a dark green forest.

This little photo walk got me super excited for the fall!  But I will take the warm weather as long as it feels like staying:)