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...
Bud Ogle Place in Winter
After a snowfall followed by frigid temperatures, I was out at the Ogle Place along the Roaring Fork in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On this morning I was trying to keep feeling in my fingers with the temperature around 9 degrees! Photographing scenes like...
How to Photograph Flowing Water
Photographing one of the many creek scenes in the Smoky Mountains presents a few challenges. First is the desire to capture the sense of flowing water, rather than water that is frozen. To do this you will need your camera on a tripod with an exposure time of one-half...
Wildflower Photography: Coneflower Dreamscape
The photograph above is the Green Headed, or Cutleaf Coneflower. It blooms all along the roadside in the middle of summer up near Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park . Here's a fun photo tip for taking a picture like the one above. One of my...
Variations on a Theme
These three Smoky Mtns photos illustrate something about how the process of photography happens for me. All were taken on a high-elevation trail near Clingmans Dome in the Smokies. Walking along the trail, the scene above caused me to stop. Something about the...
The Roaring Fork in Black and White
Lately I've become hooked on black and white conversions. A couple of weeks ago I posted some black and white Smoky Mountains photos from Cades Cove. Today's offerings are from along the Roaring Fork. In the digital era the camera's sensor records everything in color....
Cades Cove in Black and White
Lately I've been inspired to convert some of my Smoky Mountains photos to black and white. There are many ways to do this, including software such as Silver Efex or Photoshop. I am a big fan of Lightroom for many reasons, and it has built in conversion that works...
Wildflower Photography Tips
Updated 2012: This blog post was originally written two years ago, in spring of 2010. The information here is still very valid and useful, but in the past couple of years I've adopted a more "minimalist" approach to photography, and especially wildflower photos. The...
Smoky Mountains Impressionism
Today's photography tip is about impressionism and experimentation. I've tried Impressionism in my Smoky Mountains photography before, as in Smoky Mountains Monet. All of the photos here were taken with the camera hand-held, with no special Photoshop filters added and...
The World Within the World
Friday philosophy time combined with a photo tip ... a two-fer-one! For me, so much of photography is about seeing the world within the world. Most photographs don't jump out of the jumble in front of our eyes and say "here I am, take me!" Some do, but mostly not....
Photo Tip: Winter Blues
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...
More Greenbrier in Winter
Yesterday's Greenbrier in Winter photo was so pretty that I had to do some more. Both of these are along the trail to Ramsay Cascades. The one above is the footbridge at the trail head, and the one below is on up the trail a bit. A nice wet slow that really clung to...