Not long ago I decided that I wanted to catch a sunrise from one of my favorite locations on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Black Balsam Mountain Overlook. In spite of really being conscientious about arriving on time, I was delayed in my departure from Asheville; and as I was going down the Parkway as quickly as the speed limit would allow, I realized that I was going to fall short in my arrival. Nothing to do but go to Plan B. Knowing the road intimately was certainly a boon because I was able to stop several miles short of my destination and use Looking Glass Rock as a foreground element while the color deepened and the thin mists floated lazily through the valleys below. Scouting your locations ahead of time and becoming intimate with their possibilities is sometimes the difference between salvaging a wonderful experience from the jaws of “too late.” Since the layers of color were stacked vertically, it was a vertical composition that appealed to me, but extraneous elements in the visual field dictated a focal length of 75mm – the near end of short telephoto. An aperture of f/20 provided depth-of-field; and a shutter speed of 0.6 second at ISO 100 gave me a slightly darker-than-medium exposure which I further darkened in post-processing in order to bring the scene closer to the way my eyes experienced it.
Beautiful! Hope you and Bonnie had a wonderful time camping with your grandson. Those experiences are too precious.
Some times miscues end happily & successfully, as in your plan ‘B’. Wonderful shot, love the progressive loss of contrast in the recessing ridge lines, and the alternating warm & cool tones in the sky.
Don, I love this perspective on Looking Glass rock. I don’t recall ever seeing a morning shot of this familiar scene. The warm light of an evening sun lighting the rock dominates most images of this place. Congratulations on seeing it “out of the box”. The late summer haze and gray mountains receding into the dim light of predawn provide the perfect backdrop for a beautiful morning sky filled with warm and cool colors and the promise of another beautiful day on the Blue Ridge. It takes a heart for a place to see it the way you do. Thanks for sharing your heart with us.
Hey Judy, Mike, and Dorsey. Thanks to all of you for joining me. Judy, we had an excellent camping trip. You are so right, those moments are priceless and too few. We did a 2.5 mile hike and a 3.2 mile hike and saw the Tsalagi Museum and Unto These Hills. And by the way, I’m glad you like the Image. This is a great time of year for sunrise/sunset along the BRP. Michael, I hope your trip to Pennsylvania was excellent. And thanks for your observations and comments. I especially like your description of “progressive loss of contrast” as a way of describing receding ridges, as well as your description of the alternating warm-cool tonalities. For folks who are attracted to a scene without sometimes knowing exactly why, your words may give them a descriptive anchor for their non-verbalized feelings. Dorsey, you are exactly correct about the typical angle from which Looking Glass gathers light, and isn’t it all the more reason – as Pat O’Hara has always reminded us – to look for the different way of viewing a familiar place. I believe that “heart” is something that can be learned through a process of intent, and I thank you for honoring me with your kind words. Thank you all, again, for joining me in a visit to Plan “B.”