vanishing light

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
--Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) French photographer.

Above: Sunset at Beauty Spot looking southeast into North Carolina. You know spring has arrived when the Unaka Mountain Road gate is open once again.

the gift of music

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.
--Martin Luther (1483-1546) German theologian.

The photos of the flute player statue were taken a few years ago (at different times of the year) in the gardens outside of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.

"Biltmore Blooms" is underway from March 19-May 26. Save $50 off an annual pass if you order during the month of March. Click here to find out what's blooming now.

Click here, to see my previous Biltmore photos and posts.

B&W Photography

To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.  – Andri Cauldwell (b.1982) photographer.

I always turn to working in black and white at this time of year when the colors of our world are still at their lowest ebb (at least in higher elevations). An accomplished landscape photographer was asked why he preferred to work in color. He explained that color photography is akin to non-fiction, while black and white photography is fiction -- and he preferred to capture the world as it is. There's an honesty to color photography. Black and white gives us an artificial, 'unreal' way of viewing the world. I think for many, that's the allure of it. It's seeing the world in a  unique way -- and in the process we notice new aspects of a scene that were hidden or obscured by color: light and shadow, texture, lines, shapes, repetition -- all become more prominent as we remove the distraction of color.

Above: Appalachian Trail near Round Bald in the Roan Highlands.

Angel Tree

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. 
--Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and engineer.

[click photo to enlarge]. The oft photographed 'Angel Tree' is a live oak located on John's Island outside of Charleston, SC. I happened to visit on New Year's Day and the gate was closed, so I took a series of photos through the fence and stitched them together in Photoshop. What you see here is really just a portion of one side of the tree - this thing is massive. What stands out to visitors is not necessarily its height (it stands 67 feet tall), but its trunk which measures 28 feet in circumference. Most astounding of all, however, are the branches that stretch out so incredibly far from the trunk. Its longest branch is 89 feet long and its widest diameter (tip to tip) is 187 feet. In all, the tree's canopy covers an amazing 17,200 square feet. Estimates of the tree's age vary greatly, from 400 to 1,400 years old. If it were 1,400 years old, it would be among the oldest living things east of the Mississippi.

See more photos here.

alignment

I often think of that rare fulfilling joy when you are in the presence of some wonderful alignment of events. Where the light, the colour, the shapes, and the balance all interlock so perfectly that I feel truly overwhelmed by the wonder of it. 
--Charlie Waite (b.1949) English landscape photographer.

Above: Seeger Chapel at sunset.

nature talk

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.
--Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) 

Above: Watauga Lake at Carden's Bluff Campground.

quiet awareness

Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.
--W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) photographer.

Above: A quiet trail at Rock Creek Park outside of Erwin, TN.

november palette

The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette. 
–Henry S. Hoskins (1875–1957) Stockbroker and man of letters.

unique

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-born American writer. 

Above: Pink Lady's Slippers blooming on Buffalo Mountain. This unique plant is found throughout the eastern United States and is part of the orchid family.  In Tennessee it is considered endangered.  It depends upon a specific type of fungi in the soil for its survival and tends to grow in colonies.

full of surprises

If photography is about anything it is the deep surprise of living in the ordinary world. By virtue of walking through the fields and streets of this planet, focusing on the small and the unexpected, conferring attention on the helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space, the photographer reminds us that the actual world is full of surprise, which is precisely that most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.
--John Rosenthal, writer/photographer

capture the beauty

The intention of a photographer is to capture the beauty in places, obvious or hidden, in which modern age and technology cause us to dismiss.
--Kassadi Collins

Above: Photographers intent on capturing the beauty of the Rhododendron Gardens atop Roan Mountain.

autumn colors

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.
--Claude Monet (1840-1926) French impressionist painter.  

Autumn colors on a rainy day.

beauty everywhere

To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature.
--Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) French sculptor

beyond words

There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.
--Ansel Adams (1902-1984) American photographer  

Above: Martin's Creek Falls, Erwin, TN.  Click here for a description and detailed directions.

Check it out...Hiking Bill has completely redesigned his website -- a fantastic resource with beautiful photos and always-accurate descriptions and directions.

surreal

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.
--Salvador Dali (1904-1989) Spanish surrealist painter 

Above: Watauga Lake at Sunset. 

I occasionally experiment with HDR photography, but I rarely post any of them here because I haven't had much success in producing interesting images. I'm happy to leave it to those who consistently turn out fantastic work like C. David Cook from Jonesborough, TN.  Other examples here and here. For those unfamiliar with this technique - the unique look of High Dynamic Range photos is produced by combining multiple photos taken with different exposures in an effort to "open up" the shadows of a scene while at the same time maintaining the details in the brightest parts of an image.  This is usually accomplished by taking one (or more) dark image, one "correct" exposure, and one (or more) bright image -- and then combining them using Photoshop CS5 or other software. When done well, the final product takes on a dreamlike, surreal quality.  There are entire books written on the subject of HDR and numerous video tutorials available online if you want to give it a try!

On another note..."Bonny Kate" is a familiar name here in northeast TN...here's the rest of the story.

spring wonder

Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder.
--Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935) German writer, philosopher and theologian 

One of my favorite sights of spring -- unfurling ferns fronds (aka Fiddleheads). Previous photos here and here.

‘The Curious Savage’

Tickets are now on sale for Milligan College’s production of “The Curious Savage,” to be performed this weekend, October 21, 22 and 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Milligan’s Gregory Center for the Liberal Arts. General admission is $8, and student tickets are $5. Tickets are available in the Milligan College Bookstore, open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by calling 423.461.8733.

The play is hilarious and the actors are absolutely fantastic. I loved it! If you're looking for something fun and different to do this weekend, look no further! From the press release... Set in 1950, “The Curious Savage” is about a widow, Mrs. Savage, whose husband left her $10 million. Her grown stepchildren try to get their hands on the fortune. When they cannot, they commit the widow to a sanatorium. Mrs. Savage is determined to establish a fund to help others realize their dreams. In the sanatorium, she meets various social misfits. Her newfound friends conspire with her to get rid of the stepchildren and help her carry out her plan.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms,

the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another 

the sense of what it is to be a human being.

--Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic--

give a hoot

When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.
--Edward Steichen (1879-1973) American photographer

This is Shakespeare, an injured barred owl that lives at the Nature Habitat at Grandfather Mountain. Being quite loud and vocal, they are more commonly known as "hoot owls." A common sound heard at night in the eastern US is the barred owl's "hoo, hoo, too-HOO; hoo, hoo, too-HOO."  My friend Kevin would mimick their hoots at night from his Roan Mountain porch calling out "who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you" - which spurred them to answer back and move in closer.  Click here to listen to their distinctive call.

close your eyes and imagine

I look out the window sometimes to seek the color of the shadows and the different greens in the trees, but when I get ready to paint I just close my eyes and imagine a scene.

--Grandma Moses (born Anna Mary Robertson) (1860-1961) American folk painter

Sunlight filtering through the mist and trees on Unaka Mountain.

buck wild

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion... the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
--Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) American documentary photographer 

Above: A deer at Bay's Mountain Park in Kingsport, TN - so not really a buck in the wild. It looks to be the same deer resting in just about the same spot as I photographed earlier this year. As Lange said, pick a theme and work it. :)

What Ansel Adams was to landscape photography, Dorothea Lange was to documentary photography. She is best known for her work with the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, documenting the plight of the poor and forgotten in rural America. You will probably recognize her most famous photograph entitled Migrant Mother. If you've never seen Lange's emotional and gripping work, head over to one of my favorite websites, Shorpy.com where dozens and dozens of her photographs are displayed, along with descriptions (and the ability to view each photo full size).