North Carolina Waterfalls and Fall Color Trip 2012 (Part 3)

Well, caught up with me, as it usually does whenever I go out of town, and I've been so busy I've barely had time to check my email.  So, here's the third and final entry from our fall color adventures.
For part one, click here.
For part two, click here.

Thursday morning arrived with a thick fog, and, having missed Whitewater Falls the previous evening, we headed there first, hoping the fog would lift. Our hopes turned out to be wishful thinking, as by 12:30 P.M., the fog was still thick. I managed to salvage the morning with this shot of a lone tree in the fog at the Whitewater Falls parking area. It's not fantastic but I like it and it sure shows the conditions we had to deal with.

 

We decided to head on to Maggie Valley, where we would spend two days to witness the Elk rut in the Cataloochie Valley.  Along the way, we stopped to photograph a number of old barns and a covered bridge.  There are but one or two covered bridges left in North Carolina from the old days, so it was nice to see this one, which gives at least an aura of old times, even though it's probably less than 10 years old and looks newer.  A charming little bridge along NC 107.

Friday morning found us driving the super dusty and bouncy, pot hole encrusted, 8 mile long dirt road approach to the Cataloochie Valley.  I hadn't seen this road this bad before and it took almost 45 mins. to get through it.  Bad road or not, it's always a rewarding experience to see the elk and visit this valley.  Even when crowded, as it was this day, it's a good time.

We witnessed some decent size herds this year and there were a lot of bulls out and about during the day, which is kind of unusual.  I witnessed a short fight, but was unable to catch it with camera.  I think next trip out, I'm going to camp out in Oconoluftee and wait for the morning herd to cross the river back into the woods after their breakfast.  I saw this happening but no matter how fast I ran to get a pic, it wasn't to be, and only caught the tail end of the last elk.  So, next year, I'll be just sitting and waiting.

I did enjoy a bit of exploring this year and found it somewhat rewarding looking for old barns and deserted buildings on the backroads.  Here are a couple.

Found on the roadside along N.C. 107

Old barn at Oconoluftee, Great Smokey Mountain National Park.

Along U.S. 25E near Cumberland, Kentuck.  On the edge of a stormy evening.

Mingus Mill in Great Smokey Mountain National Park

A brief stop at Berea College on the way home and the iconic Draper Building.

So ends another trip to wonderful mountainous N. Carolina and vicinity.  Sunrise and sunsets were not so noteworthy or photographable this trip, as there was much haze and not much of the heavy fog normally attributed to the mountains this time of year.  This was about the best we saw in seven days.  Lots of early mornings with not much to show and sunset was no better, as there was a lot of haze our whole trip.

View from Blue Ridge Parkway, north of  Big Witch Gap.

Good bye for this year and looking forward to next year.

Go here for all the images from this trip and thanks for looking.

North Carolina Waterfalls and Fall Color Trip 2012 (Part 2)

If you haven't read part one of this adventure, go here.

After Dupont, we traveled over to Pisgah and Looking Glass Falls and lunch before heading off into the forest on one of the service roads.  I had heard of a falls there that actually turned out to be a hike to disappointment.  Even though it's never a disappointment to be in the mountains, I was led to believe there was something there, other than what I found.  So, I did some macro work on the trail back.

Close in at the bottom.

To finish out the day, and there is no better way to finish the day, we drove over to Eastatoe Falls, which just happened to be on the way home.  This place has got to be my favorite of them all.  There are many great ones, but this place is very serene and usually I am all alone here.  This waterfall is 80 feet of splendor and magic, and is right in some guy's back yard.  He has to be a cool guy to allow tourists and he does.  Thanks to him.  I've met him once but never even got his name, and somehow, that seems appropriate, as I just love the beauty and magic of this place.  Two shots from Eastatoe.  The small one is a close cropped section from the bottom of the falls and the second is an overall view from the pool at the base.  There is another view from further down the creek as well, but I think these two will suffice to show the beauty of this place.  So quiet and peaceful.  Just the water and you.

From the main pool.

The next day took us to a couple of falls I had not visited yet.  I had seen pictures and I wanted to go, so go, we did.  First up was Secret Falls.  It was not that hard to get to, but the trail head was not so obvious and it was a bit arduous.  Some pretty steep uphill climbs in both directions, but mostly coming back.  Not for the faint of heart, but worth the trip for sure.

Secret Falls

After that, another very hard hike.  Really easy going down into this 500-600 foot deep gorge.  Not so easy coming out.  It's only 3/4 of a mile one way, but you will feel it.  Despite the burning muscle tissue, an all in all rewarding hike, as we visited three falls in one plunge.  This is Glen Falls and it starts out as a long cascade at the top and then there is a big falls in the middle and another at the bottom.

Glen Falls Middle Falls

Glen Falls - Lower Section

After Glen Falls, we decided to go on down the road (U.S. 64) a bit further, as there are a number of falls right on the side of the road.  We passed by Bridalveil Falls, an interesting place but not much for photography, and pulled in at Dry Falls, which has a newly reconfigured parking area and concrete sidewalks and railings going down into the gorge.  This place is really cool.  Lots of good angles to shoot and walking behind the falls leads you to more at the end of the trail.

 These two images are from the approach (left) and then from the end of the trail, where there is a viewing area.

 

Then there's the view looking down the gorge with mountains in the distance as you are leaving.

Looking down the valley from Dry Falls.

After leaving Dry Falls, it was time for the grand daddy of them all, however, it proved not to be, as nightfall was swiftly setting in on us. We would never make it in time, and decided to try for first thing in the morning, prior to heading to Maggie Valley. See part one of our adventure here.
See part three here. 

North Carolina Waterfalls and Fall Color Trip 2012 (Part 1)

Saturday morning, 6AM.  I'm sitting in the cabin in Maggie Valley.....cup of coffee and getting ready to pack up and head home.  Thinking about the past week and what a wonderful time was had by all.  Starting out in Hocking Hills, Ohio, we spent three days wondering the trails and photographing fall color mostly, as the creeks and streams were dry as a bone.  I've never seen it this dry.  We managed to visit almost all the iconic places that Hocking has to offer and a few others as well.  The color was seemingly at it's peak, so the fall color vistas were looking good.

Hocking Hills - Rock House and some light painting.

Cantwell Cliffs was probably the most difficult of the hikes, as we covered every trail in the place, stopping to shoot the two most prominent land features, as well as a bit of macro/closeups of some of the rock faces.  It's a wonder how some of these very abstract looking rock faces evolved.

Hocking Hills - Cantwell Cliffs

 Finishing up at the lower falls at Old Man Cave, I was disappointed to note that the park people have put up split rail fencing in front of the falls and also signs prohibiting closer approach to the falls, such as the large bolder I have shot from in the past.  It also wrecks what I thought was a very nice shot of the falls looking through the underside of the foot bridge at the end of the trail.  Oh, well.  Things change.

Monday morning had us heading south to N. Carolina, travelling via I-75 to US-25E through Cumberland Gap and over I-40 into MaggieValley where we picked up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  First up was Soco Falls, which is close to the entrance to the parkway.  Couldn't not stop here, but I was hesitant to drag my charge into the riverbed for full effect photos, so we shot from the deck.

Soco Falls

Along the way, we discovered Woodfin Cascades, situated right along the side of the parkway.  There's an overlook there, so we stopped and shot and had some lunch.  This is a place that deserves much more exploration, but that's for another trip. 

Next we traveled down the parkway to County Road 215 to visit one of my favorite places, Courthouse Falls.  The falls is situated about four miles in on an old U.S.Forest Service road and the hike is simple and a short 1/4 mile.  On the way out, we worked along the Courthouse Creek for a bit.

Along Courthouse Creek - Devil's Courthouse

After Courthouse we stopped at the Living Waters where there are three sets of falls.  We didn't have much time so we only shot one.

Falls at Living Waters Ministry

 Finishing up at Living Waters, we headed for our lodgings in the town of Brevard which is situated on the edge of the Land of Waterfalls (primarily Transylvania County).  Dinner and a look at the shots from the day and some sleep.

Tuesday had us heading out for Dupont State Forest with a short stop at Conestee Falls.  I was delighted that this place was finally accessible, as it had been closed on my several previous visits.  The county did a great job of creating a viewing platform, but they also denied access to the base of the falls,where the best shots could be had.  Still it was worth the stop to see this great falls and I could see why they restricted access to the base, as it is a very deep gorge of approximately 100 feet or more.  The shame is there is no view of the falls from the front, where they would be most beautiful.  As you can see, there is another waterfall coming into the gorge at the bottom of this photo and it would be a great shot with both falls tumbling into the gorge, but I suppose it would be unsafe to get that shot.  Here's a shot from below by a realtor from before the county construction.

The sun was burning brightly when we reached Dupont, and it was extremely difficult to shoot anything but we visited High Falls and Triple Falls.  If nothing else, we got some good exercise and there were lots of people about to meet and converse with.  No wall hangers here, just good times and nice folks.

Dupont State Forest - Tripple Falls from the overlook.

 Thanks for looking.  This concludes part one of our Fall 2012 adventure to the Land of Waterfalls.  You can see the rest of the adventure by continuing to the next post.  Hope you enjoyed and please comment.

The adventure continues in part two.  See it here.

Fireworks Fun

I spent the evening with some friends at the First Annual Fireworks Competitions at Coney Island in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Coney Island is one of my favorite local places, as I was a regular there during my childhood.  It's good to see that the place is coming back from retirement, as I was afraid it would disappear entirely some years ago.  Now there are lots of ride back in the park, but I think they need to work on the concessions a bit.  Anyway, it was good to see good old Moonlight Gardens, where I spent some time dancing in my twenties.

This is apparently the first nationally held competition of it's type.  Represented were: Mexico, Canada, and U.S.A.  Canada won hands down with Mexico bringing up the rear.  Then there was an encore from Rozzi, which stole the show.  They would have won, if they had competed.   It was a chilly evening and I didn't get home till about midnight but it was a fun time.  Here are a few images from the evening.  The rest are on my website here, where you can see I took some liberties in Photoshop.

 

Fall Trips

We're leaving on October 12th for Hocking Hills State Park.  We'll spend the weekend there and photograph falls, water features, forest scenery and landscapes as well as whatever macro and floral features we encounter on the trails.  You can join us if you like by checking out the event page  HERE.

After the Hocking Hills event, we will be heading directly to North Carolina for approximately 10 days of working in the western N. Carolina and eastern Tennessee mountains, shooting waterfalls, forest scenery, antique architectural, rutting elk, sunrise and sunset atop the Blue Ridge Parkway from my favorite sites, as well as a couple of adventurous side trips deep into the forests for some special sites that few ever see.

Check out the website for details here, and, here. If you can't make it during the times listed, contact me.  We'll be there from 15 - 25 October, and longer if necessary.  We'll accommodate you if you just want to come for a couple of days.  Drop a line and ask what's available and we'll be flexible during that time period.

This is a great opportunity to capture some wonderful images.  Hope you can join us there.

Hummers

I recently had the opportunity to visit a place where there were more hummingbirds than I had ever seen in one place.  I'm sure this is small news to some people, but I had never seen 20-30 hummers flying around in the same place before.  Normally, at my house, we're lucky to see three or four at the same time.

Anyway, we drove like three hours one way to visit some folks in Terre Haute, Indiana.  They live on a residential lot that backs up to a corn field with neighbors on either side.  Apparently, they have been putting out the feeders for many years, so they had a "reputation" with the birds.  It is also getting time for migration, so the place was literally swarming with birds.

I'd like to thank my friend, Nancy, for including me in her adventure.  We had a great time there and meeting her friends with the hummingbirds.  Other than two half hour traffic jams on the way home, it was a spectacular day.  Make sure and check out her page at the link above for more hummers and sunflowers.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day.

I shot all of these with my Sigma 50-500mm lens in manual mode.  Some were shot at 1/250th with a flash and the rest at aperture priority f6.3.  There was a lot of available light, so, it wasn't too hard to grab one or two in focus, as I was able to get some shutters up to 1/2000.  It was interesting to note that there was only one male who was visiting all during our shooting, but as soon as we went inside, half a dozen more showed up.  It was amazing to see so many birds at one time.

Here are some shots from a few years ago, shot with my old Nikon 70-300mmG version $150.00 clunker in available light as well.  That was a miserable lens, but occasionally, I wish I had it back.  That's on my bucket list, but this time it will be the newer VR version.

These were shot from my back deck.  We had a good amount of visits that year, but this year was pretty sparse.  Maybe I should grow corn in the back yard and more birds will come. lol

If you want to see all my shots, check this link.  I'm currently combing the archives for more decent shots of hummers from the past, so maybe check back later and see if there are any additions.  Thanks for looking, and don't forget, the correct formula for hummers is 1:4 sugar to water.  Excess sugar is not good for them.

A Visit to the Sunflower Field

Today I went out to the sunflower field.  I used to know where another one was but it's no longer populated with sunflowers, and that's why I call this one "the" sunflower field.  There doesn't seem to be another anywhere in the vicinity anymore.  Too bad too, because the other one had a much, much larger variety of sunflower.  The kind that grow 6-8 feet tall and are bigger around than a dinner plate.  They were cool, and it was necessary to bring a ladder to shoot over the tops of the field, but no more.  So, we shall not lament, as we had a good time in the sunflower field today, (where the blooms are but six to eight inches in diameter and the stalks are four feet or less) and we got a couple of decent shots.  We also noted an abundance of insects and birds populating the field and it was nice to almost get a good shot of a Yellow Warbler?.  Someone can correct me if I misidentify the bird.  So, take a look at these and if you want more, you can visit the album of all the shots here.  Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy.

Just a note about this image if you are wondering.  It was processed in Adobe Camera RAW and the effect is that of reducing the clarity slider, in case you are interested.  It's an interesting effect and I like the little bit of halo it adds.

Compare this one to the above.  It's complete opposite processing in the sharpening department.  I worked the clarity slider to the right to sharpen, increased the blacks and saturation a bit, and then sharpened in Photoshop again for the final.

I like this one, as the leaf on the right seem to portray a form of salutation, as if to say, Hello, welcome, I don't mind posing for you,  and thank you for taking my picture.  hahaha

This is an extremely hard crop.  I was shooting at 500mm from about 50 feet when I got this guy.  Lots of foliage to navigate to get one of these guys.  It was hard to get them in the open or on top of the higher flowers.

Old Dutch Masters Shoot

Last Saturday I worked with a group from Ohio Valley Camera Club setting up and shooting still life in the vein of the "Old Dutch Masters".  There were approximately 40 attendees for this shoot, including the instructors and coordinators.  Bob Wilcox, John and Cathy Steudel, and Jerry Spohr were the venue hosts and did a wonderful job.

The afternoon started off with a power point presentation by Nancy Germer and then the group was broken out into four different groups.  There were two studio set ups with all the amenities and lighting and fixtures you could want and there were two home made set ups, using whatever was available to set up and light the subjects, the point being that you can do this sort of thing without investing a lot of money and using available household items.

Everyone was tasked with bringing in some sort of object to occupy the still life sets and it was all arranged on some central tables where everyone from each of the four shooting venues would draw objects for their set ups.

I was in charge of one of the home made (minimalist) set ups and there were six shooters working there setting up the compositions and the lighting, with a bit of help from me.  I was seriously impressed with the talent present and the fact that we were working with bare bones equipment made it all the more astounding when looking at some of the results.

I didn't get too much chance to visit the other locations and shoot them, thus, these photos are from some of the set ups we put together at our location.  Hope you like.

This scene was set up by my friend Connie Sanders, with just a bit of help from the group.

This was a group composition, but was started by one person, who's name I don't recall, but a brilliant idea, none the less.

This stuff was too much to overlook.  I would have thought there would be a waiting line for these items.  Great stuff.

I brought the window and the pitcher.  I was having second thoughts about hauling such a large object, but everyone loved it so glad I did.  Also glad I didn't clean the glass of all the sawdust and cobwebs.  The tight crop is to hide the plastic and aluminum parts of the window and try to make it look a bit more "antique".

All in all a great shoot and there were a lot more and different set ups and compositions.  It was quite a treat and also inspiring how many people had such a great time and how many excellent photos came out of the shoot.  You can view a whole lot more of them on Ohio Valley Camera Club's website here.  I think there are about 125 all together including some black light images from a box by Jerry Spohr.

Working with the Macro lens.

This year I'm using a  Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Di SP AF/MF 1:1 Macro Lens and I am quite impressed with it.  It's better than any other macro I've owned and it's been a joy to work with.  I have used it on a wide variety of subjects in varied situations and have yet to be disappointed.  It's very easy to work with this lens.

  One aspect of working with macro lenses which was new to me was the "effective aperture" which is reported in camera when using the lens.  In the past, my cameras and lenses have either not been of a superior quality or of the type that I am using now, so I was not exposed to this phenomena.   I have often seen apertures reported as high as f67 with this lens.  I was a bit confused at first, as I had never heard of apertures this small.  It would seem amazing that any light whatever could reach the sensor through such a small opening.  However, a bit of research revealed that  "Macro lenses change their 'effective aperture' as you focus closer. This effective aperture gets smaller as most macro lenses actually change focal length too, as you focus close. Some lenses do not report this, but all Nikon brand macro lenses and some 3rd party ones like your Tamron do."*  It might be hard to comprehend how and why this occurs but once you have a grip on the concept, it makes sense.  Basically, the closer you get, the less light is allowed into the lens and, even though we are using an fixed aperture f2.8 lens, the amount of light entering is "effectively" the same as an aperture of f51, for instance.  The camera is then relaying that information to you in your viewfinder.

More information than you ever wanted to know and a good starting point for further research concerning this subject can be found in the photomacrography.net forums.  There are also discussions about the relationship between effective aperture and diffraction blur.



*Harrison - photographyreview.com

Spring Flowers and Close Up Photography

I'm working with a new lens this year.  I'd shopped around for awhile and finally decided on the Tamron 90mm f2.8 Macro.  This lens is super sharp and has a fast auto focus.  It's a great lens for doing macro work, and though it's not my choice for an every day walking around lens, it doesn't do such a bad job at that, either.  As long as you remember you are at a fixed focal length, it works fine.  Love the lens.

I was pretty much chomping at the bit to get busy with this lens and have had a pretty good time working with it this spring.  From bugs to flowers, I've been impressed with this lens.  It's capabilities are awesome. The depth of field is excellent and I experimented with it recently on a nature walk.  Here are a couple of shots.  The first is wide open at f3.5 and 1/250, and the second is at f29 and 1/6.

 You can see the difference in the depth of field.  It is pretty spectacular and the clarity is impressive as well.  Both images were processed identically.

While in the woods, where the above shots were photographed, I ran across a couple of other nice wildflowers, but was somewhat disappointed at not finding any Jack in the Pulpit, which is what I went there to find.

At any rate, it was a nice walk, and my first real opportunity to spend some time with the lens in a real time shooting environment.  I've always liked shallow depth of field shots for the fine backgrounds they can create, but in some circumstances I'm looking for more detail and a deeper area of clarity and the depth of field on my new lens is outstanding for that purpose.