Winter abstract in the Smoky Mountains

Another light snowstorm through most of the day yesterday, but not enough to close the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I drove up into the Greenbrier section and found a winter fairyland. So beautiful and dreamlike … I’ll have some more images soon from my roamings, but first a few abstract treatments. The mood of these tall trees along the Ramsay Cascades Trail was like a ghostly cathedral. I was trying to capture the peace and silence, and the white glow around the whole scene. With all those upright tree trunks, I couldn’t resist the temptation to set the up for a long exposure and wave the camera vertically as the picture was taken. It takes a bunch of attempts to get something good, but the idea is with about a one second exposure to hesitate for about half that time and let the scene be captured with some amount of detail, then quickly move the camera up or down to create the dreamy, blurry, ghostly effect. Not a Photoshop trick, all done in the camera!

Here are some more from this series. Click any one to bring up a slide show, then hover your mouse over the image to go forward or back in the series.

Please stop in and visit me to see the complete display of Smoky Mountain Photography at the William Britten Gallery in Gatlinburg, TN.

Smoky Mountains fairyland

Ghostly winter trees

Winter trees abstract