[Capture Challenge] Charge your battery and take some photos

[lphilpot (Len Philpot)]

Tennessee autumn colors

Last week I visited a friend in eastern Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains. Just me and 500,000 of my closest friends, but whatever… I was ready for a road trip, though – About 750 miles each way.

Trying to find / do landscape photography on a short trip is always a challenge. The nature of landscape is, it really benefits from (i.e., virtually requires) scouting, watching, waiting and ideally, local knowledge. Well we had some of that since my friend has lived in that general all his life. And the weather even cooperated more than it quite often does (not).

All of these were processed in ART, with some secondary bits in Affinity Photo. But 90%+ of the heavy lifting was done by ART.

A beautiful sunrise from Newfound Gap
There were LOTS of people here, but I managed to find a spot where I could crop most of them out. One of these days I’m gonna try drooling and talking to my imaginary friend to see if that’ll help keep my shots clear of tourists…

Fall color on Clingman’s Dome
We were initially excited by the prospect of mist / cloud up at Clingman’s Dome, but it was totally socked in. Before we left, it cleared a little but was never really photographically ideal.

Bald River Falls
I want to come back to this one again. There’s more potential there than we had time to explore.

Looking upstream on Tellico River
This is just at the point Bald River (falls) empties into Tellico River.

Intense sunset light on the Cherohala Skyway
This is more of a postcard image, but the light was something else. The color is no exaggeration – Between autumn foliage and low raking sunset light it was impressive. Catching the red 911 pulling away down the Skyway was a bonus.

Inversion layer in the valley off the Foothills Parkway
This is around the Wears Valley – Townsend area. After some rain the previous day, we were hoping for mist. Yep – We got it!!

Under the canopy over Little River near Tremont.
I would’ve loved to trim a few branches, but that’s life…

Our ugly mugs on the Foothills Parkway.
This is one of “count 'em on one hand” selfies I’ve done. I plan on keeping it that way.

[AdamFromCanada (Adam Severeid)]

I could spend an entire day at waterfalls like that and still feel like I was missing a shot somewhere.
Thanks for sharing. Great takes.

[ggbutcher (Glenn Butcher)]

Beautiful images, Len. In my Louisiana youth, the Smoky Mountains were my first “real” mountains (Kisatchie doesn’t count, ~700ft…), old and stately. Thanks for sharing your trip, good to meet you and yours

[martin.scharnke]

I have not contributed for a couple of weeks; no spectacular autumn colours here, more a brief travelogue on my way home after guest-preaching on Brisbane’s Redcliffe peninsular today; The first three are taken at Woody Point, including a gorgeous coffee van:

On the Causeway across Moreton Bay:

In the AirportLink tunnel, showing the 4 exit lanes:
F’Val=Fortitude Valley
ICB=Inner City Bypass
CLEM7= Clem Jones Tunnel
City (self explanatory)

After emerging from AirportLink, through a Spaghetti junction, and about to plunge beneath the city and the Brisbane River into the next tunnel: the Clem 7.

[ggbutcher (Glenn Butcher)]

In Chama, New Mexico, to work on a railroad photo charter. Leaving tomorrow for Antonito, 23-car train with two engines. Overnight stay in Antonito, return to Chama on Monday. Tonight, they put on a light show, which in railfan terms is lighting a locomotive for photography in the style of O Winston Link, a noted railroad photographer who used large flash setups. Here’s one of mine:

Wandered over to the engine shop, where their garish lights made for interesting white balance, exacerbated by my 5600K setting for the LEDs at the staged scene. Auto WB helped this time:

Two young men were welding a contraption:

Back to the staged shoot, they’d moved the lights and locomotive a bit. I decided to experiment with ISO 8000:

Don’t pixel-peep this , it’s terrible. But, composition…

I’ll have more tomorrow, of the scenery…

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

If those were in B&W you could mistake them for some shots out of a noir Hollywood movie They lit things exactly like that, it looks great.

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

Great photos, my favorites are 6462 and 6675, amazing tones.

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

Scotland Trip #2
Morning of day 2, Fort William and Glenfinnan

[epeeist (Colin Walls)]

Where is your next stop?

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

I am already home, but the next stop that day was my friend’s home in Lesmahagow. Will post more tomorrow, although my captures at the three sisters were not that great, even if it was probably the most beautiful place out of the entire trip, the light was really powerful that day.

[TonyBarrett]

Wow

[TonyBarrett]

Great shots

[dnzm (Max)]

Tree.

[AtaraxicShrug (Rob)]

It must be near peak fall color:

[AdamFromCanada (Adam Severeid)]

Yes, all the tripods in their splendor…such a beautiful sight.

[lphilpot (Len Philpot)]

@AdamFromCanada

I could spend an entire day at waterfalls like that and still feel like I was missing a shot somewhere.

My friend was using a borrowed lens, a very nice 17-something and you can see the alternatives 17mm provides (over my 24-70). I had my old Sigma 17-70 with me but for whatever reason I got it out only once. More on point, his shots of the waterfall had more context than mine.

There’s a new bridge over the falls’ output, with a viewing platform on it. From Google Maps imagery:

Old bridge:

Part of the new bridge (looking 90 degrees to the right):

For the photos we walked down under the bridge, which was handy since it was raining off and on.

[lphilpot (Len Philpot)]

@AtaraxicShrug

It must be near peak fall color

Kind of interesting in retrospect … It was within ~2 weeks or less of peak color in the Great Smoky Mountains and the tourist volume was testament to it. But we saw only a handful of photographers. So either we were hitting the non-honeypot locations or were totally misguided!

[lphilpot (Len Philpot)]

@ggbutcher

Beautiful images, Len. In my Louisiana youth, the Smoky Mountains were my first “real” mountains (Kisatchie doesn’t count, ~700ft…), old and stately.

Thanks! My first mountains were the Ouachita ranges in central western Arkansas, where my dad was born and raised. They look like the Smokies, just a little smaller. My mother was from south Louisiana, where the only hills were highway overpasses…

~700’ in Kisatchie? Those must be fisherman feet! LOL The Longleaf Byway southwest of Natchitoches ranges between ~100’ and 400’, and the highest “peak” in Louisiana – the hilariously named Driskill “Mountain” – is 535’ if I recall.

[DanielLikesDT (Daniel, who likes dt and digikam)]

Trying to do “minimalist landscape” photography. Any tip how this could be improved is much appreciated.

[Ulrich_from_Germany]

I am no expert, just my Impression.
I like the landsacpe oriented much more than the portrait one.
The first landscape: is the Horizont slightly unleveled?
The Portrait one: to empty and to much gras before the sea.
I Really like the other two.