Saturday, October 26, 2024
I don’t think anyone has any idea what I’ve been going through for the last six weeks or so. The non-stop clear skies have really started to get to me. Since the hurricane passed through NC, we have been in a constant high pressure weather pattern which means that the skies remain clear and there is no precipitation. For the normal person, this is wonderful weather, and a great time to get out and enjoy. For a photographer, this is torture because there is just so little that can be done with clear skies when it comes to landscape photography.
My last trek was one where I felt more like myself than I have since probably March of this year. That was eleven days ago, and it was the first day with clouds that we had seen in a long time. It happened right on the heels of another trek where I was really starting to get out of my creative slump. It was an exciting time for me because I wanted to get out so badly that the weather was almost a secondary concern for me. That was pretty much where I left off and I still had that urge to go out and create photos which was nothing short of amazing.
The problem that I was facing was some of the most boring light that I could imagine because of that high pressure system. I would look at the weather forecasts and see no clouds for weeks at a time. A few days ago, the weekend was starting to look promising with some cloud potential according to the weather.com app on the phone. When I checked it against the Clear Outside App, I saw that there were some thin low clouds expected on Saturday morning, but several layers of clouds for Sunday through most of the first half of the day. Out of the two, Sunday was looking the most promising, but for what kind of photography?
I had received a tip from a friend about a body shop not too far down the road from me that had some nice old vehicles. After having such a good time with the International in Taylorsville, I was really looking forward to doing more with rust. With some free time on Friday, I drove out to the body shop to see if they minded me doing a bit of photography over the weekend. I talked with one of the employees who actually lived on the property and found out that there would be no issue with me coming out to shoot some of the cars. I left it as potentially coming on Sunday with the thicker cloud cover which was fine by him.
Knowing that I had permission, I started to really look at the weather seriously since I knew what I was wanting to shoot. The disparity between the days was getting more and more definite with not nearly enough clouds to work with on Saturday. The clouds that were forecasted would also be low clouds which wouldn’t make for a great sunrise either which is something I look for with partly cloudy days. It was looking like Saturday was going to be a wash with just enough clouds to torment me. Had it not been for one thing, I would have certainly opted to stay home.
That one thing was the fact that Toni was going to help a friend with an event in North Wilkesboro which meant that she was going to be getting up at about 5am. That is very early for both of us these days, but it got me thinking that with her getting up, there was a pretty good chance that I would be awake at the same time. Looking at the time sunrise was supposed to happen (around 7:44am), I would actually have plenty of time to get to a location well before first light. I just needed to figure out the location that I wanted to go.
Just a day or so before, I had gotten word that a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway had opened up after an indefinite closing due to storm damage. It was a small section that went from Bamboo Rd out to Beacon Heights which was a section that I was pretty familiar with. I knew that most of the leaves were gone in our mountains, but didn’t really care all that much about the fall color. If I found some, that would be icing on the cake, but I was more interested in getting some decent landscape images and possibly working with water and long exposures. The natural choice was Price Lake which according to everything I was seeing online was going to be open for visitation.
I checked the routes that would allow me to get to the lake and found the best option that put it an hour away from me. As long as I left around 6am, I would be in good shape to get there in time to alter the plans if needed. Toni had her clock set for 5am and I checked the weather before going to sleep. The clouds were thinning more and more for Saturday morning, but there was a chance of rain in Wilkes County in the afternoon. If I was lucky, I might be able to get good cloud cover during the afternoon hours and be able to get the old cars shot as a second stop for the day. The morning was possibly going to be a wash with less and less clouds expected, and I was hoping to have something to show for the day if I went out.
Toni and I both woke up before her alarm rang and surprisingly enough, I was wide awake after only six hours of sleep. I checked the phone and found that the current conditions for Blowing Rock showed to be cloudy, but the hourly forecast only showed 30% cloud cover for the next few hours. Clear Outside, was showing about the same coverage, but thinning out right at sunrise. I really considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but I was really and truly awake which surprised me. I didn’t want to waste a morning when I was able to get up that easily, so I went ahead and got my day started. If the mountains turned out to be a bust, there was a chance that I could get the old cars shot while the sun was still off to the East which was the direction that I was going to need. I skipped my morning activities so I could get on the road as early as possible and figured that I would do my morning posting from the lake while I waited for the light to do whatever it was going to do.
As I was leaving the garage, I noticed that the sky was pretty clear overhead which was in opposition to what the current conditions were showing on the phone. I decided not to worry about the weather and just make my way to the Parkway to see what appealed to me out there. I didn’t even put that much thought into what I was going to shoot while I was driving. It was all just going to be left to chance, and oddly enough, I was fine with that.
I got to the lake earlier than expected and had about 40 minutes before sunrise. It looked as though the water was calm, but there were no clouds over the lake, and not that many leaves left on the trees. With an empty sky, there wasn’t much else that I wanted to shoot, so I decided to stick it out. I knew that there were some rocks that I would probably be able to capture with the water reflecting the blue sky which interested me in concept. While I waited for the sun to come up a bit, I pulled out my phone and tried to do my morning posting on social media. Where I would usually have a decent signal, there was nothing at all registering on the phone, it was completely dead. So much for that plan.
It was around 7:20 when I got out of the truck and grabbed my gear to go to the area where I knew I would find my composition. It took about 30 seconds to walk over to the dam where I stood behind the railing. It really wasn’t that original of a place to shoot, I’ll admit it. With the boring sky, I knew that it was going to be the light that I was after more than anything, and that meant that I was going to need to shoot away from the rising sun. The composition was rather simple, and I had the camera set up and dialed in really quickly. The only issue that I was running into was that there was a breeze over the water on the other side of the lake. This was messing up my reflections, but it wasn’t horrible. The good news was that there was a bank of clouds coming into the frame from the right which promised to bring some interest to the sky. With the clouds moving, I wanted to make sure that I had a long exposure to soften the clouds and amplify any color that they might reflect, though I didn’t have much hope for that to happen with the low altitude of the clouds.
For that, I pulled out my 5-stop ND filter which was paired with a polarizer to take some of the glare off of the water. The two filters would give me about 6.5 stops of light reduction and allow me to get something like a four-minute exposure in the current conditions. Of course, it was too dark to see though the viewfinder with those two filters on, so I had to get it all set up and figure out my exposure without the filters. Once I had that done, and the focus set, I mounted the filters and took a test exposure. It turned out really great for a test. I made a couple of changes to the composition and did an in-camera crop to 16:9 before firing off a second exposure with the same settings. Seeing that the light levels were increasing, I decided to manually terminate the exposure at 180 seconds instead of letting it go the full 210 seconds. I missed the count by a single second, but that wasn’t going to affect the exposure at all. When it popped up on the LCD, I was really happy with how it turned out. The following exposures were done with slightly different exposures for the increasing light and some subtle framing changes as the clouds changed up. In the end, it was that second exposure that worked the best. It had the smoothest colors and just seemed to capture the mood that I wanted for the photo better than the others that had better light.
After about 40 minutes of working the sunrise light on the mountain, I decided to turn my attention across the street where I had seen a red tree beside the stream coming from the dam. I walked down to it and looked for a composition which never came. Instead of forcing it, I turned and went back up to the main lake where I knew that there were some rocks in the water. I ducked down in one of the little holes off of the parking lot and found my subjects. They were still in the shadows of the trees, but it wasn’t going to be long before the sunlight hit them.
I swapped out lenses for my telephoto while keeping the polarizer attached. I then started to figure out the compositions that I wanted with the rocks. The concept that I was going with was to use the rocks as a visual anchor while allowing the water to reflect the sky above. There were a couple of patches of clouds that I was able to utilize for this and could see where the careful positioning needed to be in order to line the clouds up with the rocks.
As I worked between two different sets of rocks, I played with the polarizer to control how much reflection was visible in the water as well as how much glare was on the rocks. This was a great example of a time when just a simple twist of the polarizer can alter the image completely and I found that I really didn’t like the filter at either end of its range. It was always somewhere in the middle of the effect that worked the best for these compositions.
It wasn’t too long before the warm sunlight of morning was hitting the rocks. Depending on which one I was shooting, I either got a high contrast kiss of light with deep shadows, or a was able to get a full on warm glow on the rock. I really liked both options and found that it introduced variety into my photos. More than likely, I spent far too long working these two rock formations in the water, but since it was part of the original plan, I wanted to really see it through. The concept had come to me years ago when photographing this lake under a mostly sunny sky and the one photo that I captured with that concept turned into a very successful photo. Since there was no question that the concept worked, I had no problem at all really working the scene to see what I liked the best with the lighting as well as different positions.
It was about a half hour that I spent with the rocks. During that time, I didn’t photograph the distant shore, or even the sky directly. All that filled my frame was the two areas of rocks and the reflected surface of the water. The effects that I was able to get were just what I had been hoping for and the few clouds in the sky really came through for me with the reflections that they offered. At the point when I started to really recycle my compositions and lighting, I decided that it was time to call it quits. The sun was getting kind of high in the sky by this point and I thought that the light was going to get worse from this point forward.
I took this time to walk over to the small fishing platform to see if there were any good compositions there. The hope was that there would be some colorful trees nearby, but that didn’t happen. One of these days I’m going to get a photo of this platform because I have been looking for one for probably a decade now without success. One of these days… It wasn’t this day though. There was nothing at all of interest around that platform, so I turned and went back to the truck. It had been fun, but I felt that I was all done with this location.
As I was walking through the parking lot, I looked out over the lake and could see where the sun was illuminating the mountain in the distance as well as the bank to the right. The long stretch across the lake was still largely in shadow which made for an interesting scene. The light over most of the scene was kind of flat, but the shadowed portion added some depth and interest that couldn’t be ignored. I moved into position a good bit further to the right from where I had started the day and got the tripod set up for a panorama. With the lighting, I really wanted to get a sweeping view that included the clouds as well as their reflections.
When I had the tripod leveled and the camera mounted with the telephoto lens, I started to get my exposure settings figured out. Contrary to my rule about polarizers and wide-angle shots (a panorama certainly counts as a wide-angle photo), I decided to leave the polarizer on to get the water looking right. I was just very careful about how much of the effect I dialed in so that the sky didn’t go all wonky with polarized light. When I was satisfied with my filter compromises, I set up the focus and made a last sweep of the scene to check the histogram. It all looked good, so I started making exposures from left to right.
By the third frame, I saw that the clouds were overexposing, so I knocked the exposure down 2/3 of a stop and started again. This one was better, but there was still a hair of clipping in the clouds. Once more click of the shutter and I was certain that I was going to have the correct exposure. The last series was six frames that were all exposed correctly. I had been working through this really quickly because the clouds were starting to dissipate, and I didn’t want to waste too much time. The exposure was a little tricky, so I just decided to address it as I went rather than really trying to get it right the first time.
It all paid off because that last series captured the scene that I wanted. I think that ideally, having more clouds on the left side would benefit the overall composition, but this was one of those times when the clouds would just disappear as they passed a certain spot in the sky. That was happening here and there was nothing that I could do about it. It did seem to accentuate the fact that the shadowed portion of the lake was a little less inviting than the portion that was illuminated by the sun. Having the light and the clouds to the right, drew the attention to that side of the frame, effectively leaving the left side as negative space that kind of worked here with the framing clouds at the corners to the left.
Once the panorama was finished, I decided to take a last look around the lake to see if there was anything else that I might want to photograph. Nothing was sticking out to me, and looking at the sky, it was going to be a longshot to have good light for the old cars back in Wilkes County. The smart money was saying that I was done for the day. I couldn’t complain at all because I had 59 frames captured on a day that could have easily been a wash because of the lack of clouds. I felt good about the day and was really excited to see how the rocks turned out with the reflections. I felt like the last panorama and at least one of the earlier compositions as the sun came up were going to work out for me as well.
I got everything loaded back in the truck and pulled back out onto the Parkway with hopes that something else might jump out at me as photo worthy. Just to the North of the lake is a spot that I’ve spent quite a bit of time at over the years. There is a red barn which I’ve shot a few times as well as a field with a split rail fence across the street. I happened to glance over at the field and saw a lone tree that I had first photographed in maybe 2008. When I did, there was light streaking across the field and highlighting the tree. The sky had been kind of interesting, but nothing special. In the years since, I have tried to get the composition with a better sky, but each time resulted in very flat light.
This time, the sun was out and blazing away at the scene while the thin clouds were all poised above the tree. It was a great scene and one that was definitely an improvement over the first attempt and much better than the subsequent tries. I quickly got turned around and pulled off on the side of the road to get ready for the photo. The lighting was perfect, and since I hate to run the motor in the truck for less than five miles, I just left the truck idling as I pulled out the camera with the telephoto lens.
I knew roughly where to go to get the composition that I was after which made it quick and easy. The only problem was that in the five minutes that it had taken me to turn around, get the camera and get into position, the light was gone. The sun had ducked behind a small cloud which meant that all I could do was get the composition set, the focus locked in, and then wait. Looking at the cloud, it wasn’t going to be but a minute or two and I only needed one shot here. Of course, the cloud had other ideas for me as it morphed and changed shape to keep the sun covered. In all, I think it was covered for about four or five minutes as I rattled off shots that captured a good sky behind the tree, but no interesting light on the scene. These were likely going to be black and white images so that I could bring more contrast into the frame.
I kept looking back over my shoulder at the sun to see that it was still behind this little cloud that refused to move. There was a larger cloud that was approaching the sun which would overrun the small cloud eventually. That larger cloud would effectively kill the light for the scene, so I had to hope that the sun would poke out for just a minute before that happened. I just kept watching the scene and the clouds looking for a clue. Eventually, I could see the sunlight in the background of the frame behind the line of trees. This meant that the sunlight was getting closer to the tree, but the large cloud was still steadily making its way to the sun.
Just as I was about to lose hope, the small cloud moved out of the way and the sun shone upon the scene creating the same great shadows across the field that I had seen driving through a short time before. The light was warm as the sun was still low in the sky, and the clouds above the tree still had the interesting whisps that had drawn my attention earlier. I fired off multiple exposures as the quality of light changed and the intensity increased and then again decreased as the next cloud covered the sun. The light show lasted about 2 minutes, and I managed to get the photo above as the light was starting to fade away. It was the best blend of light and clouds above the tree in my opinion. It was the 15th frame of the 18 that I shot over seven minutes after getting the camera set up. My initial reaction is that this photo was well worth the stop, and I think it is the strongest that I have made of this scene yet.
With the sun now back behind a large cloud, I knew it was time to pack it up and move on. I was really happy with what I had gotten so far and would have been satisfied had that been the end of it. However, that was not the last shot of the day. In fact, just a few more miles down the road found me at Thunder Hill which is another location that I love to shoot at. I’ve done workshops here as well as mentorships with clients because of all the variations that it can offer. This time, what caught my eye was the vast view of the mountains in the distance with how the sunlight was creating hazy layers. I’ve been getting into capturing these patterns more and more and felt that it was worth a quick stop to give it a try.
I pulled into the parking area and got my camera out with the telephoto lens attached once again. This time, I left the polarizer off since I was shooting into the sun which is not a good angle to show polarization. It was very hard to see the composition because of how the light was, and I had to raise the camera up well above my eye level to get over the nearby brush. This forced me to compose through the live view which is not easy in this kind of situation with the sun.
Once I got it all dialed in and found an exposure that I thought would work, I fired off a few shots and then changed the composition a few times for some other variations. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out, but it was worth the try. During the culling, I wasn’t all that happy with how they turned out but picked on to edit. I went with a more muted color palette for this than the others from the day. It just felt right because of how the sunlight was hitting the scene. The sun naturally reduces contrast, so I tried not to counter that too much. What I liked was how the sunlight was hitting the near hills while the distant ones were just pale hazy shapes with no texture. The sky was pretty much bland as you would expect, and I stayed true to that with a very desaturated rendition of the sky.
I still don’t know if this is a successful image or not, but there is enough here for me to like it. I will see how it ages over time and how well it is received by different audiences. I do like getting images that stand out in my collection as being different from time to time. Sometimes they work out great and other times, not so much. Time will tell where this one falls. In any case, I didn’t spend too much time here because it was making my eyes hurt from looking into the bright light so much. It was time to move along.
I had been looking around for other possibilities to shoot while working the one composition. The area that struck me as interesting was found on the other side of the Parkway and ironically was centered on a few splotches of yellow in a sea of bare trees with some evergreens scattered about. I didn’t see a composition at all, but the little points of color on the hillside drew me in. Using the telephoto lens to the fullest, I started to visually work my way around the different bits of color until I found a few compositions that might work.
One of the early compositions that I found had the evergreens cropped into at the bottom of the frame so that they matched the visual weight of the ones at the top of the hill. That green framed the bare trees which isolated the yellow and red trees quite well. The clouds above gave some interest beyond the trees which I thought was necessary. In all, I shot five frames with variations on this composition, and it was the second one that I shot that turned into the keeper. What I loved about this one was the way that the clouds completed a sort of “S-curve” through the frame. None of the other frames had that quality and it was the one detail that really set this one apart from the others.
This one is another one of those shots that is not easily identifiable as one of mine because the composition is very much different from what I would normally shoot. However, the decay aspect of the bare trees is something that does interest me and should be a recognizable quality in this photo. I really like how the colors work together here and how the bottom of the frame is occupied by the vibrant green trees with a different texture to the other parts of the scene. There are a lot of layers here that I think work very well together which makes this a successful image in my opinion.
In a way, this was a well thought out grab shot that ended up defining the trek for the seasonal conditions of the Parkway. Due to many factors, I had missed peak color, and actually heard that it was one of the more disappointing Autumns in recent history even had I seen it. My first chance to get up to the leaves was well after peak, and most of the leaves were gone. This last image really sums up what I was dealing with, but it does it in a rather poetic way. There is so much to like about this photo, even if the colors aren’t a primary reason. For me, the textures and the way the eyes track through the different parts make this a really interesting composition where the colors are just an added bonus.
I did try one more subject before leaving, but after two frames I knew that it wasn’t going to work out. The sun was just too harsh, and the color that I was trying to capture wasn’t going to get the saturation that I desired because of the angle of the light. Once the 87th frame was shot, I packed things back up in the truck and headed back down the mountain. The further I got towards Wilkes County, the more blue sky I was seeing which told me that there was no reason to go out to the body shop to photograph those old cars. That will have to wait for another day when the lighting is better. That turned out to be a good thing because of those 87 images, I ended up processing a total of 10 frames which took a little while to get done.
Here we are at 7:30, 14 and a half hours after I woke up, getting finished up with the blog. I’m still excited about the day and very glad that I went out. I still have a lot of creative energy left to go and hopefully will get to put that to use tomorrow. It really is a great feeling to not see photography as a chore like it had become over the past few months. It is again a fun experience and one that I look forward to and can maintain the momentum until the job is done with a smile on my face.
Hopefully, you have enjoyed this trek as much as I have as well as finding a few photos that you like. Remember, if any of the photos that post in the blog or in the galleries speak to you, I would love to talk with you about creating a print especially for you. I really believe that art is a very personal choice which is why I want you to pick how you want your print displayed. I have a number of stock sizes available in the online store which are printed to order by me, or I can have my photos printed larger and on different media such as metal or canvas if you so desire. The printer that I use has been vetted by me and has done more prints than I can count with a quality that makes me proud. Whether I print your photos, or have them done by a print shop, rest assured that you will be holding in your hands exactly what I intended with the photograph. There will be no variables like monitor adjustment or calibration that you would need to worry about. A physical print takes all the guesswork out of it, and you know that you are holding exactly what I visualized when creating the image.
Even if you never purchase a print from me, I want you to know that I am thankful to have you along for the ride. If you are one of subscribers to this blog, you are very special to me because you have indicated that you want to know what is going on with my photography. If you haven’t subscribed, consider signing up so that you will get up to date notifications of new blog entries when they are released. This is the only use that your contact information will be used for, but it is the most efficient way of getting these updates without having to rely on social media algorithms which are rarely in my favor. Subscribing costs you nothing and it does show your support of what I’m doing.
I hope to be back here in the next couple of days with some rusty gold for you. If not, be sure to check back in next Friday morning for my latest Behind the Camera. This next installment will be in print like they used to be. I’m going to give the video versions a little break but am still interested in which you prefer. Let me know which works best for you. I know that I like sitting down and reading things like this better than finding the time to watch a video, but I’m not always considered normal. Anyway, I look forward to seeing you again soon!
Until next time….
Wait…before you go. I’ve just added another photo to this collection after a day of thinking about it. You can read about the photo and where it falls into this narrative by checking out this quick blog. Thank you for your patience, and back to our regularly scheduled programming.
