Every year for the past 15 years I have spent my Thanksgiving in the NC Mountains. For me it’s hard to be exploring in the wilderness with my camera but as most landscape photographers know when you have been a place many times the same spots can become boring. This trip I challenged myself to find different compositions in some of those spots and to find one you area to explore I had never been.
My first image is from Looking Glass Falls. Looking Glass is an amazing waterfall in Pisgah National Forest but it has been photographed many times. The popular composition as I have shot (see portfolio page) several times is to shoot from a distance, possibly as a long exposure, taking in the entire falls and flowing creek. For this image I thought it would be cool to shoot with a long lens and focus entirely on the bottom portion of the falls at a 30-second exposure to create the cascade look as you seen in the image. At the time of day I shot it the lower portion of the falls was completely shadow creating a blue tone versus the yellowish orange tone you might see if you were to shoot wide showing the entire scene. My final result is below.
May next image comes from Dupont State Forest at the lower end of Triple Falls along a short hike to Hooker Falls. Again an area I have shot many times but always at Hooker Falls and never along the Little River. After doing a little bush wacking and venturing off the trail I found this set of curved trees in front of the swift flowing water of the Little River. My original decision was to do a quick exposure to try and show how fast the water was moving but after also doing a longer exposure I decided I liked the image more as a LE. I was quite happy with the result.
Last, I ventured to the upper part of Triple Falls, down a road and trail to Lake Dense. Of all the times I have visited the area I have never been to Lake Dense. I shot several different images which I like but particularly like this one of the dock house with me standing at the end. It decided to go with black and white for this one.
