Monthly Archives: June 2015

Bumblebees are enjoying sips of lavender nectar. This was a fun photo shoot for me since the bees were very active and the lavender flowers smelled great. I shot this with a relatively shallow depth of field to have sharp focus on the foreground bee and throw the background bee […]

  I shot this fast flowing mountain stream in the Smokies with a neutral density filter to slow the motion of the water and convey some sense of its power in slow motion waves.

  I was struck by the color of these maple leaves in the foreground spiraling up from green to red in an inverted seasonal display. With summer days away the red leaves newly emerging already hint at autumn. The tall peak in the distance is Mt. Mitchell, the highest summit […]

  Spring reflections. This was shot with a neutral density filter to allow me to use the bright but warm light of late afternoon to gather all the reflections in this stream. With a 13 second exposure at f/20 I maximized depth of field to create a symmetry of green […]

Somehow this very slow motion view of a stream reminds me of the old children’s song. In this alternate reality captured in 15 seconds with the assistance of a neutral density filter, life is but a dream. In the foreground the water seems slowed to gentle waves on an ocean […]

The Rays of the setting sun are caught by the pine branches in the Black Mountains of North Carolina.

This is a completely different take on the same fire at a campground in the Smokies. This was taken at 1/80 when lots of sparks were flying off into the night

After a couple s’mores my interest in the fire in the Smoky Mountains turned to photography. I played with different angles and speeds and thought this one at 1/5 second shot from a tripod was the most interesting. The sharpness of the oak logs and a single leaf suspended in […]

This black-bellied salamander was remarkably tame as it perched on a rock in a cool mountain stream in the Smoky Mountains. This one seems to have a few large scars on its face. The individuals fight over prime real estate, with each having a territory of around 190 square inches. […]