Snow is Awesome

That's me, just south of Fox Hunter's Paradise

 

With a little work, snow can be(and always is) a wonderful thing.  Sure, we have to sometimes live without electricity, water, internet, or other amenities.  We have to shovel our driveways or get stuck, we have to brush off our satellite dishes to restore entertainment, we sometimes have to light a candle to create enough light to play scrabble.  I mean, it can be a very traumatic experience.

 

I for one, absolutely love snow.  The more the better.  I love the change in the landscape, the ice natural sculptures of ice, and the crunch under my feet.  I also love how snow can bring on an absolute quiet. 

 

I started my day getting dressed at 4a.m.  Since my area recieved over 6" of snow the previous evening, I new that I was gonna need a good head start to make it to Fox Hunter's Paradise by sunrise. 

 

The county road crew came and scraped our road(with an actual constuction scraper), creating a huge pile of snow at the bottom of my driveway.  I thought I could get a little speed and blast through the snow in reverse, but of course I got stuck.  I don't own a shovel, so I found myself trying to dig my car out with a utility rake.  I had been digging for about ten minutes when my neighbor, a local mail carrier who was on his way to work, came up behind me and offered a push.  This was critical in getting me to the parkway on time(and keeping my car from blocking half of the road).

 

I then drove to the Highway 18/Blue Ridge Parkway Junction and parked my car in a safe spot on the side of the road.  It's just shy of 2 miles to Fox Hunter's Paradise, and since a few 4x4's had driven the parkway the night before, I was able to walk in thier tracks:)  I made it to the overlook at the beginning of blue hour, with stars still showing. 

 

While I waited for the sun to rise, I snapped a few predawn shots before heading down the parkway just a little ways to capture the sun breaking the horizon.  The air was coooooooooooold before sunrise.  I tried to clean my graduated filter by breathing on it and wiping it off(I know, not the best choice) and all I got was bits of ice on my filter as it froze immediately.

 

After sunrise walking back to the car, I decided to stop into gully creek, but the rhododendrons that were pushed down by all the snow made navigating the creek very difficult, so I didn't hang around long...

 

Enjoy the image below, and click the link to view the full gallery from Friday's fun.

 

 

Click Here for the Full Gallery



 

 

 

The Sun breaks the horizon near Pilot Mountain 

 

Barbed Wire, Spiderwebs, and Red Sky

I am hoping you will enjoy these images from the Parkway.
The fog was thick as I left the house well before sunrise. It scattered just enough to allow me to see some really nice color.

On the way back I grabbed a few macro shots of some barbed wire near the house.



A soft landscape shot at 1.4




More 1.4 Landscape

 

A classic North Carolina Scene taken by sticking 3 images together.  Shot with the Sigma 50





I am under the impression that young spiders, new to the web-making scene, use these barbs as practice:)





Refraction... I shot this with apertures 14, 6.3, and 2.8.   The 2.8 image left only the largest drop in focus, with everything else out of focus.  6.3 allowed a few more of the drops to come into focus, but still not the results I wanted.  At 14, the shape and detail of the barb shows just enough while not being distracting.



Thanks for looking:)  Feel free to leave a comment or a question(no need to log in)

A Few Days in the Smokies

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park

     A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Smoky Mountains with my girlfriend Ashley and some friends of ours. I had a totally awesome time even though we got rained on a little bit (just kidding, we got drenched to the point where I thought my rental lens was going to be ruined). I rented a Canon 24-105mm f4 L for this trip. The lens was mounted to a 5d Mark II. The following are images taken with this kit on my journey in the Smokies.

A joyful view of Happy Valley from that Look Rock thing. 

The Smokies from a lookout on the way to Look Rock.

 On the way back to camp, I had the driver drop me off about a mile from our cabin so I could shoot this creek. We stayed in a really nice cabin courtesy of Westley Woods Church Camp.

This tree is located right next to the creek pictured above.

 Still on day one, we started hiking to view the phlox. It was a six mile hike into White Oaks Sinks (I think that's what it's called).

Some private property on the way into the Sinks.

Some vegetation above a bat infested cave!

Phlox:what we came here for.

My beautiful girlfriend.

Bob Hayes, one of the coolest dudes you'll ever meet.

Shooting Stars, Falling Stars, I'm not sure.

My girlfriend and and her good friend.

Curly ferns!

An atypical tree growth among the phlox (my girlfriend thinks it looks like a swan).

I had a difficult time framing the Phlox as I do any time I try to shoot in a new environment.

Bob, Ashley and Jessica.  Michael(Snow) is also in this photo, can you find him?

With lightening and thunder nearby(not to mention pouring rain), I had but one opportunity to set up this shot before having to bail.

Some deer bask in the Jesus light on the Cade's Cove bike trail.

This is an operational mill in Cade's Cove.

Inside the mill, the 24-105 image stabilization came in handy for this longer exposure of the gears.

Pennies dropped into the mill.

      On the final day of our trip, I took a stroll through the woods and took advantage of some nice light. Thanks for reading!

Grayson Highlands State Park 3-22-112

Grayson Highlands State Park, located near Mouth of Wilson, VA.

The 'Spring' mentality has hit me.  I'm ready to start getting out into nature again and breathe that fresh mountain air, if you consider a 5,000 ft high hill to be a mountain:)

The winter here was mild and boring, it just wasn't enticing for me to go outside.  I'm not sure why, but I'm glad it's over. 

This park takes me about an hour to get to, it is home to wild ponies(not photographed on this trip), many cool trails and streams, and a trailhead to the highest point in VA, Mount Rogers.  This day I concentrated on hiking the southern park of the park, including Cabin Creek, Big Pinnacle, and Listening Rock trails.  About 7 Miles total, and all accessible from one parking spot.  

I got to the park just before sunrise.  Sunrises over the Blue Ridge Mountains are beautiful to say the least.  Fog fills the valleys and the warm sun slowly rises to give us awesome scenes.  They are nice to just sit and watch:)

First shots of the day(HDR)

Sunrise over the Blue Ridge

After watching the sunrise, I hiked down the Cabin Creek Trail.  It has this name for an old hunting cabin that is along its bank.  Today I was focused mostly on the falls.

I enjoy the lines on the rocks at Cabin Creek Falls

A 'weeping' wall(sort of)

Cabin Creek runs through...

A tighter comp on Cabin Creek

After hiking Cabin Creek and having two very wet feet, I drank a slimfast shake and rang out my socks.  I then set off to hike Big Pinacle, the highest point in the park.  This trail ends at the start of Listening rock, so no driving needed:)

The view from the highest point in the park, Big Pinnacle(looking South)

Looking North from Big Pinnacle

Weathered Trees on the trail

There is a smaller 'Pinnacle', with views that are just as nice.

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From here, I went to the trail called Listening Rock, I didn't take as many photos on this part of the hike.  And when you hike it, you will know why.  It's a very quiet hike, the only sounds are from birds.  You're walking through a forest that seems to go forever.  With the sun high in the sky, circling turkey vultures' shadows were dancing across the forest floor. I did shoot a photo of some small flowers starting to bloom, and a small overlook.  Thanks for reading:)

Flowers about 1cm in diameter are starting to come out.

A small opening to the horizon.

Trail Markers make it easy to get around.