These two Smoky Mountains photos were created as special editions for this fall. The photos were both taken in the Greenbrier area of the Smokies. Both are processed with more extreme contrast and color saturation than I normally do. This effect is something I do as a change of pace for occasional pictures. These two…
Greenbrier Spring was taken just downstream from the bridge leading up the Ramsay Prong Road in the Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains. The creek entering from the right is the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River, and straight ahead is the Ramsay Prong entering. A beautiful spring day after the dogwood blooms have…
Last week we paid a visit to Plemmons Cemetery in the False Gap area of the Greenbrier in the Smoky Mountains. This week we are exploring further up the creek to the Bohannon homestead. The patriarch, Henry Bohannon, was born in Virginia in 1753 and was buried in the Greenbrier in 1842. Family history says Henry…
Dogwood Lullaby is one of the most comfortable and lyrical of my featured Smoky Mountains photos. You can almost hear the dogwood blossoms singing a soft melody on an easy-going Spring morning. Hard times of Winter are over, replaced by the lighthearted and feathery, warm and hopeful days of Spring. Well, I’m probably laying it…
We began our exploration of the False Gap area in the Greenbrier last week. To refresh our memory, this is the area just over the first two bridges as you turn to head up to Ramsey Cascades Trail. Park near the old road with a chain across it to your right. Today we will be taking…
I’d like to do some off-the-beaten-path exploring in search of the history of the Greenbrier this spring. One of the best areas to start is up False Gap because you’re hemmed in with the creek on one side and mountains on the other, giving you a nice valley to explore with not much chance of…
It’s Philosophical Friday once again. Today’s post is about making stacks of balanced stones as art and therapy. Some days you just need to go out and stack some stones. Right? Just head out along some creek and start wandering, looking for a good selection of rocks. The right color, right shape, ability to get…
Another Smoky Mountains history entry from the journal of Dutch Roth, recounting a long Smoky Mountains hike taken in 1931 by Dutch and his friends Harvey Broome and Luther Greene on Hughes Ridge, which is known as Pecks Corner nowdays. HUGHES RIDGE FROM GREENBRIER “This experience was not unusual in 1931. We were willing to…
Winter Footbridge shows a cold, snowy scene in the Greenbrier section of the Smokies. This picture was taken from the bridge at the Ramsey Cascades trailhead. The scene is very evocative of the silence and solitude of wintertime deep in the Smokies. Just up the trail from this spot is the location of one of…
Winter Silence is my best-selling winter Smoky Mountains photos. It’s a dreamy, ethereal snow scene that was taken out in the Greenbrier area of the Smokies during a late winter storm. The technique used to capture the image is unusual. The camera was on a tripod, set to a long exposure time of about two…
The image above was taken from the footbridge that leads to the Ramsay Cascades trail in the Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains. This wide panorama was created from five vertical panels joined together with a photostitch technique. And each vertical panel was created by combining four different exposures. So, the entire image that you…
Wild Autumn is one of my Smoky Mountains photos from the fall of 2010. It was taken in the Greenbrier section of the Smokies along the Ramsay Prong of the Little Pigeon River, just from the footbridge leading to the Ramsay Cascades trail. An all-day soaking rain the day before had the stream swollen and wild,…
Hypericum is another family of wildflowers with lots of species. Over 25 can be identified in Tennessee and many of these can be found in the Smoky Mountains, giving plenty of opportunities for misidentification. Therefore, the two species in the photos here are my best effort to identify! St. Johns Wort is famous as an…
In April of every year the Smoky Mountains are showered with dogwood blooms like a late spring snowstorm. Everywhere you go … up in the Greenbrier, along the Little River or the lower elevations of the Newfound Gap Road … in Elkmont and Tremont … the dogwoods sprinkle their blooms like white notes on the…
Two random Smoky Mtn waterfalls today, one that you hike to, and the other is just a roadside pull-off. The photo above is Fern Branch Falls. This is about two miles up Porters Creek Trail in the Greenbrier section of the Smokies. Fern Branch empties into Porters Creek below this falls. The hike up Porters…
Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) is a tiny plant. The photos on this page make it seem larger than it is. In reality it is something like a white gumdrop lying on the forest floor! The globe-like blossom at the end of a single stem is known as an umbel. This variety of Ginseng has no…
Porters Creek Trail in the Greenbrier area of the Smoky Mountains is in peak bloom for spring wildflowers right now. The upper portion of the trail, from the long footbridge over the creek on up to Fern Falls, has a stunning ground cover of Fringed Phacelia. I counted over 20 species of wildflowers along Porters…
The calendar has turned towards warmth and renewal, the Smoky Mountains trails are shaking off their winter drowse, and once again we are headed towards the great spring wildflower pilgrimage. This is an exciting time of year when the trails seem to change on a daily basis. Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is a delicate, subtle beauty…
The Smoky Mountains area had a heavy rain earlier this week, so I was out poking around the next morning to see how full the creeks were. The photo above was taken just inside the Greenbrier entrance to the Park, at the place where families and children love to wade on hot summer days. Not…
Here is the final winter wallpaper/screensaver of the season. Out in the Greenbrier crossing one of the bridges on the way to the Ramsey’s Cascade trail. Our next wallpaper will definitely be warmer and more springlike! This image, and all other wallpapers, can be downloaded from http://williambritten.com/wallpaper/ Just click on the file name “greenbrier-snow-screensaver.jpg” and…
I was walking along the road to the Ramsey Cascade trail in the Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains last week. Just out for a stroll, with my little GF1 attached to a monopod like it was a walking stick. Another photographer came out of the woods onto the road, and we exchanged a greeting….
I need a short break from the relentlessly snowy pictures lately. Time to think ahead to the gorgeous green and swollen waters of a Smoky Mountains stream in springtime. The one above is the East Prong of the Little Pigeon River flowing happily through the Greenbrier. The one below is the West Prong of the…
Photographs of winter scenes, especially on cloudy days, often have too much blue. How much is too much is of course subjective, and you might want to emphasize the coldness of the scene with a blue cast. But it’s still good to be aware of the tendency for winter shots to look blue. If you…
I live in Gatlinburg TN, on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Smokies are a very spiritual place, and I attempt to capture some of that spirit in each of my photographs.
If you are in Gatlinburg, please stop in at my gallery .
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