Justin Acuff’s Blog

Technorati Tags: Cades Cove, Hyatt Lane, HDR, photography

Besides owning justinacuff.net and justinacuff.com, a few months ago I also added justinacuffphotography.com to the list of domain names that I own. When I eventually move from the category of hobbyist amateur to professional freelancer, I’ll need to have a site setup. The problem with domain names is that if you don’t secure them now, someone else may do it later and you’ll be left looking for another name. In the mean time, I’ll use it to post a sample photo that was taken recently that I think is pretty good and describe how I got it. I probably won’t go into great detail, but it will be a start. Check it on out. Here’s a sample of the kind of photos you might see on there:

Technorati Tags: justinacuffphotography.com, justinacuff photography

Tuseday of this week I had gone to Big Ridge State Park to see if I could get a map of the park, ride my bike a bit, and then see if there is anything else worth photographing. I hadn’t really been paying attention to the full moon schedule but as I looked up, the moon looked like it was going to be full in the next few days. I called my up dad to see if he could look up the full moon schedule. If Tuesday would have fallen between the 2 days before or two days after a full moon, I probably would have just gone up then, but alas it was still early. In the past, there were a couple of times some folks would go up to Cumberland Falls from the moonbow, but I had never made it with them.

Since the full moon fell on a Friday, I figured I would plan to go up then. First I asked if any of the other photographers from church wanted to go. Only Anthony F. was able to go. Since I still had room for a couple of people in my car, I sent a message out to the CSC summer list. Calvin was the only one to respond. He probably didn’t know what all was going to be involved. For those that might be reading this and wondering if hiking is involved, there is none. We meet up at Laurel at 5:30 to make the drive. It only takes about 1.5 hours to get there from Knoxville, but since I had never been there, I wanted to get there a little bit early to scope it out.

When we arrived, it wasn’t crowded just yet. We walked around to the different overlooks and took some photographs of the falls. For one of the overlooks, we had to wait because a wedding was going on. After looking at the different overlooks, it appeared that the first main overlook would probably give you the best view. Anthony and I setup our tripods and waited and waited and waited and waited some more. The rangers had said that the moon would probably clear the ridge after 11:00 or so. When the moon clears the ridge, the way it signs down on the mist, it creates the moonbow. The moonbow is pretty faint to the naked eye. Truthfully, its not all that impressive. However, when recorded on camera, you can see amazing detail. People were wowing as I would finish my exposure. I got a few email addresses of people that wanted a copy of my pictures. Unfortunately for them, I’m no longer a photographer that just gives away work. I now sell prints. If the prints make me too much money, then I’ll need to register as a business. I figure I’ll cross that bridge when I get close to that amount. I’ll probably go through them in the next week and really clean them up before I email them address in the gallery.

Moonbows only occur in two places in the world pretty predictably. The other place is at Victoria Falls on the Zambia and Zimbabwe border in Southern Africa. There are some other places it occurs if several conditions are right, but at Cumberland Falls, the main condition that needs to be meet is the full moon. Anyways, I bet right now you want to see the rest of the pictures. I have them posted to my gallery under: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/Misc/Cumberland_Falls_Moonbow_2008-07-18/.

Tips for Photographing the Moonbow

• You need to use a manual camera that has a bulb exposure.
• You need to use a tripod.
• Flash does not work.
• Point and shoot cameras will not work. Really, if you try to take a picture with your point and shoot in the night landscape mode, it’s not going to work. You’re just being rude and blinding everyone else around you. You need a camera that you can do an exposure greater than 30 seconds.
• The exposure on the picture in this post was ISO 200, 4 minutes @f/4.0. Next time I think I will shoot ISO 400, 4 minutes @f/8.0 for a little bit greater depth of field.

Technorati Tags: Cumberland Falls, Moonbow, Big Ridge State Park, Cumberland Falls State Park

So this is the first time in several years that I have been in Knoxville for the 4th of July. This is also the first time in a few years that I haven’t been in Brazil for the 4th. Since my parents are up and I wasn’t sure what the weather was going to do, I just decided to stay home instead of meeting up with some friends at World’s Fair Park for the fireworks. We were treated with quite a display of local fireworks before the ones at World’s Fair Park began.

Unfortunately, pretty much every view around my house is going to involve powerlines. Here’s a sampling of what we could see. All the while, there were fireworks going off behind ya, and to both sides. This is one of those times a full frame camera with a fisheye lens could show just how many fireworks displays were going on at once. All this despite fireworks being illegal in Knox County. They say you can get a $50 fine if caught and a $200 fine if someone is harmed or if property is damaged. Since everybody is doing it, I would assume its too much for cops to go around fining people for shooting fireworks, so just make sure your safe and you should be fine.

This final picture just gives you an idea of what the fireworks display at World’s Fair Park looked like from my house. Not too bad, but if you really want to photograph them, you’re better off getting closer by going to World’s Fair Park.

Here’s the rest of the pictures: Link

Technorati Tags: Fireworks, Illegal Fireworks, July 4th, Knoxville, Knox County, World’s Fair Park

While I could probably start this and most future posts with “I know its been a while since I last posted”, I’ll try to refrain or find some other creative way to say that. I suppose I could write about the Nature and Travel Field trip to the Knoxville Zoo or the Smokemont Loop/Bradley Fork trail hike I did this weekend. For the final class of Fundamentals of Digital Photography, we have to select four of our best images shot between the start and end of the class. It wasn’t too hard to pick the four. I had a lot to choose from, but I tried to choose photos that others probably don’t have

This first image is of the Middle Prong of the Little River. To get there, you take the road to Tremont and continue past Tremont. This is shot near the end. I took this shot on the first Nature and Travel field trip.

This shot was part of our second shooting assignment for the class. Since the assignments aren’t mandatory and I already knew the techniques he wanted us to learn in the assignments, I only selected the assignments that might be fun to do. I didn’t turn this one in, so it should be new to him and the class. For this shot, I was able to get access to the roof of where I work and take several pictures of downtown Knoxville at night.

I took this shot during the second Nature and Travel field trip to the Knoxville Zoo. I selected it because its falls into the category of actually being able to remove the fence from the picture. Most of the animals were close to the fence, so it was impossible to eliminate the fence. The snow leopard was perched up on her platform which was just far enough so that the fence could be eliminated.

The forth picture was the most difficult to select. I had lots to choose from by they were either too similar to the first picture or also shot at the Knoxville Zoo. I wanted something different for my fourth shot. Since I was going to be in the park on Saturday, I took my camera and was determined to get something. Since we finished the hike pretty quickly, we had all sorts of time. I knew Mingus Mill was nearby, so I said lets go check it out. It was neat, but not the best time of day to photograph it, plus there were just too many people that would walk into the shot. The park employee that was there started talking to us. Since we were in the area, he told us we might want to check out Mingo Falls. I had heard of it, but didn’t where it was. Luckily he gave us directions. To get to it, take Newfound Gap Road toward Cherokee, NC. You’ll pass the Blue Ridge Parkway. Turn left on the next road past the Blue Ridge Parkway. You’ll come to a T intersection. Turn left and follow the road for about 4.5 miles. Look for a small sign that says Mingo Falls Next Right. Park there and climb about 150 stairs and hike a little less than half a mile and you’re there.

Technorati Tags: Knoxville, Knoxville Zoo, Snow Leopard, Middle Prong of the Little River, Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains, Mingo Falls, Cityscape, Nightscape

This past weekend was a really busy one, but fun filled. It started on Saturday by meeting up with Bryan and Meredith, Justin S, Derek, Dale, and Ann for some backpacking in Big South Fork. They all go to Brentwood Hills CoC. It was kind of an interesting itinerary. Dale’s truck was left over near Bandy Creek Campground. We meet up at Leatherwood Ford. The plan was to camp out just below the Angel Falls Overlook, but first do a day hike from Leatherwood Ford to Bandy Creek, stopping by Angel Falls. The length of the Day Hike was right around 10.5 miles. I didn’t take my GPS this time, so about the only thing I really have to go on is estimating by pace and time. Our campsite was two miles in on the trail. We took a couple of tents to claim our spot. We would carry the rest of our gear when we finished the day hike and returned back to Leatherwood Food. It got cold and started to very lightly rain… and I had left my rain jacket in the car, so I was pretty miserable during the day hike and anxious to get back to the car. After getting our gear, we proceeded to hike back to camp. It is a really flat trail, so that helps when carrying a 31 lb pack after hiking 10.5 miles. After we setup, we started cooking dinner. Shortly after dinner, it started raining again. I opted to take shelter in my tent. I usually have trouble falling asleep when I’m out camping, but this time, I was out pretty quickly. I’m sure I was probably the first one out.

My plan was to leave around 8:00 in the morning since I needed to get ready for the Nature and Travel Photography Field trip later in the afternoon. Derek and Ann also had to go back to Nashville and be there in time for a Habitat for Humanity Dedication for a house their group had worked on. When I saw Derek walking around, I went down to see when they had planned on leaving… if soon I’d hike out with them, if not, I’d just hike out alone. Came to find out he had gotten sick. We originally had planned to have a church service, but in Derek’s condition, it was decided that the best thing was to get him back to the car. I helped him pack up his stuff and then went to check on Ann. She had just gotten up and was starting to pack up. However, she really didn’t have a backpack that was big enough for her stuff. On the way in Dale had helped her carry her stuff (I assume), but since Dale wasn’t camping, he left after dinner. What we decided to do was I’d hike out with Derek and carry some of Ann’s stuff and Bryan would hike out with Ann and carry some of Ann and Derek’s stuff. Then Bryan would go back to camp and hike out with Meredith and Justin later.

So that was a long story, with no pictures… but the moral of it is, it helps to have the right gear, whether it be a rain jacket or a large backpack.

Ok we now for the part of this entry that doesn’t require much writing. A few of us meet up at UT before and drove to Townsend. We then meet up with everyone else at the parking lot just before you get to the Y. As part of the field trip, we only went to two places. The first was Middle Prong on the road past Treemont. The second place was one of the first parking areas you come to after you pass the road to Treemont on the way to Cades Cove. Through work, I have access to a couple of pieces of equipment that I probably won’t ever buy. One is a Canon 40D that has been converted to Infrared and the other is a 600mm f4L lens.

http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/photography_certificate/nature_and_travel_photography/field_trip_1/

Technorati Tags: Big South Fork, Great Smoky Mountains, Nature and Travel Photography, photography, photography class, field trip

You may remember that a couple of my previous posts had pictures, but now they are gone. This is because I just wasn’t happy with the new built in Wordpress Image Gallery. So instead I have removed them and placed a link to their appropriate album in my Gallery, as does that link. I might come back to it later, but there are some things that desperately need to be fixed before I do. Anyways, now on with the post.

This past weekend, I had some free time on Saturday morning, so I decided I was going to start it off real early and make some photographs just for the fun of it. It had rained the night before and wasn’t supposed to rain on Saturday, which means the day will be pretty clear. My first destination was the Miller’s Cove Overlook on Foothills Parkway West (the road up to Look Rock). Miller’s Cove is the first overlook you come to, so it really isn’t that far of a drive from Knoxville. I got there around 5:30 and just kind of waited. About 10 minutes before sunrise, a group of about 8 people on a workshop showed up as well. One of the first shots I got before they showed up, happens to be one of my more favorite shots from all day. It may be a dark picture, but that’s part of what I like about it. The next picture is one of the better sunrise shots. There really wasn’t a whole lot of red in the sky that morning, so I really had to push it to get this picture.

After that, I headed into Cades Cove. Cades Cove is one of those place that I usually prefer to go to either really early in the day or really late at night. If you go outside of those times, you are probably going to be stuck in a traffic jam that rivals some of the worst traffic jams in Knoxville. The cause of these traffic jams are often stupidity with a side of selfishness. Cades Cove is an 11 mile loop that once you get on, is difficult to get off. If people would just follow the rules, it wouldn’t be so bad. The main rule is, don’t stop in the middle of the road, use pull-offs. There are lots of pull offs to accommodate people, but they seldom use them. Instead they stop in the middle of the road and it is usually to take a picture of a deer. Deer are really abundant in Cades Cove, so you can just imagine how this is. The two things that really get me is people who stop in the middle of the road when there is a pull-off 10 feet in front of them and those that stop in the middle of the road and use the pull-off to take their picture. Anyways, enough with my Cades Cove rant. I got there just before 8:00 and wanted to get my pictures in while the light was still good. They were all typical shots that I’m happy with, but I’ll get better shots on a different day.

This next image is definitely a place I will go back to in the fall. I’m happy with the shot as it is, but I’m certain it will look 20 times better with the fall colors. It’s also an area of the park that really doesn’t get busy like Cades Cove does. To get here, you turn down the road that heads to Tremont.

The last picture in this post is Meigs Falls. Its almost kind of sad how many times I’ve past this and never noticed it. It on Little River Road between the Townsend Y and Elkmont. After going to Tremont, I decided that I would have enough time to go to the Sinks. We had scheduled a band practice for later that day, so I wanted to get home in enough time to load up the musical gear and clean up beforehand. On my way to the sinks, I saw this waterfall and even though the light wasn’t the best, I decided to photograph it anyways. I later looked it up and found out it is called Meigs Falls. It’s so far off to the road, it is kind of easy to miss (especially when you are paying attention to the curves in the road). I have a Nature and Travel Field trip on Sunday afternoon, and we are probably going to stop here.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Great Smoky Mountains, Foothills Parkway, Miller Cove, Cades Cove, Tremont, Meigs Falls, The Sinks, Sunrise, Waterfall, Little River Road

* Shoot a properly exposed picture (manual mode) of a normal scene, not a back lit, not a front lit, not an overly light or excessively dark subject. I don’t care what aperture or what shutter speed, just properly exposed. Take notes.
* Shoot a series of five shots showing purposeful overexposures and underexposures (-2, and -1 stop, normal, +1 stop and +2 stop). Pick a shutter speed that places your aperture in the mid-point of your available apertures, say f 8. Then hold your shutter speed constant and change your apertures to get the over and under exposure your want. This is called bracketing. You can do this with shutter speeds or a combination of shutter speeds and apertures changes. Remember each full aperture change equals 1 stop. Shoot these pictures as soon as possible.
Note, do the aperture or ss change by actually changing the value of the aperture or ss, not by watching the meter move. The goal is to learn your aperture and ss values.
* Find a subject that is in motion, such as a moving car, child on a bicycle, or running water. Running water from your kitchen sink or outside garden hose does not work very well. Look for naturally flowing water. Stop, or freeze the movement of the water with shutter speed control (running water will be frozen at any shutter speed at or faster than 1/60 second. You don’t have to use the fastest shutter speed, just fast enough. Remember to keep a happy meter by adjusting your aperture.
* Now blur the movement with shutter speed control. Use a relatively slow shutter speed. Use shutter speeds starting at 1/15 sec to as slow as you can go. The limit will be set my how bright the ambient light is. When the light is bright, it is difficult or impossible to use really long shutter speeds, such as ½ or one second, but go as slow as you can while keeping your meter happy. You will find that you get to use the longest shutter possible when you set the aperture to the smallest you have, such as f22. You will need to hold the camera absolutely still for these shots. Use your tripod if you have one.
* Show shallow depth of field (such as near subject in focus and background out of focus) with aperture control. Use large apertures (large hole, small numerical value, such as f2). Get really close to your near subject and also have your far subject (viewable in the same frame) fairly far away, greater than 10-15 ft.
* Show great depth of field (near and far all in focus) with aperture control. Use small apertures (small hole, large numerical value, such as f16 or f22)

Well I’ve decided that I am not happy with Wordpress’s gallery. I’ve removed those pictures and instead here’s a link to it in my gallery.

Technorati Tags: Photography, photography class, haw ridge, worlds fair park, sunsphere, fundamentals of digital photography

I should have posted this last week, but I got kind of busy with the baby day stuff at Laurel, so I didn’t get around to it. In the meantime, I upgraded Wordpress to 2.5, which includes a photo gallery. Previously I had experimented with using a plug-in called WPG2. It worked good when I first installed it, but I think and upgrade to Gallery broke it and I don’t really care that much to go in and see what is going wrong.

As with most of the classes I am taking, this assignment was very informal. It was to pick a subject and photograph it many different ways. I actually picked two subjects, but that was just because they are in the same area. On April 13th, we are taking the youth group hiking. I know the Smoky Mountains the best and I am familiar with Big South Fork, but both of those areas are kind of far away and the Smoky Mountains will be crowded. I know there are hiking trails at Norris Dam State Park, so I loaded up my camera gear to run by Norris and pick up a trail map and hope there was something to photograph. In the southeastern part of the park, there is a Rice Grist Mill and the Crosby Threshing Barn in the same area. I chose these as my subjects. Also that weekend, I had a 40D we had modified to make it sensitive to infrared. I’m still trying to learn infrared. These were my first attempts. It was very cloudy and overcast that day, so the infrared pictures aren’t quite as good as they could have been.

Well, I’ve decided I’m not happy with the Wordpress Gallery, so I’ve removed the pictures and instead will give you a link to it in my gallery.

Technorati Tags: Nature and Travel Photography, photography, photography class, travel, Norris Dam, Norris Dam State Park, Rice Grist Mill, Grist Mill, Crosby Threshing Barn

The Nature shooting assignment is wide open for you to bring in any landscape/nature images. You are also welcome to develop an idea based on the Nature photographers that we discussed.

The first three images you will see are Panoramas that I have created in the past. The first is from the Brown’s cabin in North Carolina, the second is at the Grand Canyon, and the third is from Cataloochee. The next two are also from Cataloochee. The final two are from Norris Dam State Park. Unfortunately, this weekend isn’t the best weekend to do this assignment because of weather, but as you can see from the last two images, sometimes you just have to make do with what you’ve got.

Assignment 4

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photography class, nature, Cataloochee, Norris Dam, Grand Canyon

The plug-in I use for displaying the pictures direct from my gallery website has stopped working. Instead of trying to fix it for now, I am just deactivating it and linking to the main page of that particular album.

1) Compose and photograph a formulaic narrative composition - subject’s face is hidden or turned away from the viewer.
2) Compose and photograph a closed narrative composition.
3) Compose and photograph an open narrative composition.

The order in which they appear isn’t exactly the same order of the assignment, so to clarify:
1-7 are the closed narratives. It is part of a series I call “Urban Legends, Myths, and Internet Hoaxes”.
8 and 9 are the formulaic narratives.
10 and 11 are the open narratives.

Assignment 3

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photography class, narrative, open narrative, closed narrative, formulaic narrative, urban legend, internet hoax, myth, WPG2

This assignment is a little broader than the first assignment. It was to emulate the style of one of the photographers we studied in street photography. At first I tried out street photography at night. Since I was in Gatlinburg for Winterfest, during the Kutless concert, Jon and I went to take some pictures around Gatlinburg. Although I got some pictures I was happy with, I didn’t really get the sense that they accomplished the assignment. To finish the assignment, I decided to pick Cindy Bernard and her “Ask the Dust” series. What she did was photograph movie locations. I didn’t have a whole lot of time (nor the funds) to do extensive traveling to locate different locations, so I checked to see what movies might have been filmed around Knoxville.

I queued up Road Trip, October Sky, and Box of Moon Light in my Netflix account and waited for them to come. As they came, I tried to locate the scenes that were filmed in and around Knoxville. Road Trip was the easiest. It says they come to The University of Tennessee. In it, they visit a fraternity house which I think is the Sigma Chi house. The next movie I watched was October Sky. The only scene I photographed was the Jacob Building in Chilhowee Park. The science fair scene was filmed there. The Tennessee Theater was also used in the film, but since I did that in assignment 1, I decided to skip that.

The final movie was Box of Moon Light. I really recognized a lot of the scenes from that movie, but just decided to focus on 4. The first was a random burning couch. I immediately recognized that as being on Central Ave. The second scene had Knox Jewelry and Loan. I wasn’t quite sure about this one, so I googled it. Based on its exterior, the only results that would seem to fit were Broadway and Magnolia. Since the one on Broadway was also really close to my old house, I knew it wasn’t the one on Broadway. Since I was going to go to the Jacob Building, I figured I would look out for it on Magnolia. Sure enough, it was on Magnolia. The next scene was a little tricky. It had the obvious Quality Inn sign, but none of the locations seemed to have that antenna tower you could see in the background. I used Google Earth to verify before traveling out. Then I remembered, there used to be a Quality Inn over by West Town Mall. Sure enough, the Quality Inn is now a Howard Johnson Inn. The last scene, was just a little bit further than the rest. The 411 Motel is on Highway 411 just south of Maryville. To get the shot I needed, I really need to be there an hour and a half later, but I just couldn’t stay that long.

Assignment 2

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, Cindy Bernard, October Sky, Box of Moon Light, Knoxville, Lee Friedlander

In addition to doing make up course work for an incomplete I took a couple of years ago, I am taking some photography classes. After hearing Jon talk about the Photography Certificate offered through UT as a non-credit program, I looked at it and thought it would be kind of cool to take that. By the time I started to register, the required Fundamentals class was full. From the sounds of it, I am already pretty comfortable with the topics and techniques that is covered, but I’ll still have to take it to do the Photography Certificate. Since that class was full and the Certificate program requires 5 electives, I looked over the possible electives and selected the ones that are most interesting, most applicable, or most challenging. Not all electives are taught each quarter, so these might change if I can’t enroll in them because they are full. (Since it won’t be a last minute decision, I should be able to register for them.) The electives that I want to take are Portrait Photography, Lighting Essentials, Wedding Photography, Nature and Travel Photography, and Contemporary Art Photography. Portrait, Lighting, and Wedding are the practical electives. Nature and Travel is the one that I probably enjoy the most. (I am registered for it this quarter, but it doesn’t start until March.) Contemporary Art is the one that should be the most challenging. I thought about taking the Sports or Photoshop classes, but decided to go with Contemporary Art since 1) I could register for it this term and 2) hopefully it will help me improve on the artistic aspect.

Since I registered the day after classes started, I had missed the first class and assignment. That was also the day of the crazy ice storm so several other people missed it as well. The second class was just a review of the first class and she postponed the due date for the assignment until last night. The assignment was as follows:

Pick two:
1) Photographic “flatness” creates relationships between things that did not exist before. Select a scene a photograph it form different vantage points to create different relationships between the subjects.
2) Focus can produce a hierarchy of importance in a photograph by creating one plane of focus which seperates the main subject from the remaining content. Take a series of photographs that explore this use of focus.
3) There are two people on the street. They are completely unlrelated, but they happen at one instant to be next to each other. By taking a photograph of them in the same frame a relationship is created. Produce two or more images exploring this.
4) Explore the notion of time in photographs. Find a scene which includes movement and take photographs of increasingly longer duration, ranging from 1/1000th of a second to minutes. About five or six photos in all.

Since I had been sick, I really didn’t get to get out much. Even though she said two, I went for three. The following images are what I showed in class. They are a mixture of images that I shot specifically for this assignment and previous images that I thought would qualify as examples.

Assignment 1

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photographic flatness, focus, photography class

I just got back from Gulf Coast Getaway in Panama City Beach, Florida. For the past couple of years I’ve been going down to work on the photography staff. This year, I got a last minute call that would increase the amount of responsibility. I love doing it, but I do miss out on some of the great things the speakers usually have to say. Luckily they record it, so I can listen to it later. I am going to be kind of busy over the next few weeks as I have over 1200 RAW images to sort through, edit, and convert in addition to other things that I have going on.

Anyways, this year the concert was by a group called Building 429. The crowd really got into it and so did they. They were a really nice group and down to earth. I’d heard of them before and knew a few of their songs, but after meeting them, I’d definitely consider buying their albums off iTunes in the near future. In an effort to update this often neglected but not forgotten about blog, I thought I’d post a picture from this weekend. If I were to give titles to my pictures I would probably call this one "Can You Believe This is a CoC Conference?" During the regular (A Capella) singing, I never saw so many hands lifted up.

Technorati Tags: Gulf Coast Getaway, Building 429, Justin Acuff, Church of Christ

This past Saturday was the annual Fall Cookout at Caroline Evan’s house. In the past few years it has been scheduled for either the Georgia or Alabama game, since those rotate between home and away each year. Since the Alabama game was away this year, the cookout was scheduled for the 3rd weekend in October. One thing they like to do is setup a projector and show the game. Anytime you show something outside you are going to have problems with ambient sunlight, but when the game starts at 12:30 and you are trying to show something around that time, there is little you can do to overcome it. Such was the case this year. As time passed and the sun moved west, it got a little bit easier to see.

One thing I noticed this year was the the attendance seemed lower than usual. They were fewer college kids, fewer Laurel members, and also fewer youth group kids. In past years the cookout had been in the afternoon or the evening, so I had usually scheduled a trip to get some hiking in before the cookout. This year, since it was at 12:30, there wasn’t time to head up to the mountains before the cookout. I figured I wouldn’t be able to get any hiking in after the cookout either, but I decided I was going to try and take some pictures with my dSLR. Speaking of my dSLR, towards the ends of the cookout, some of the LYF group kids wanted to take some pictures with it themselves. I was a little nervous, but I figured they would be careful because they knew they were handling something expensive. You can view the rest of my pictures, as well as some of Philip’s, Lydia’s, Connor’s, Alex’s, and Sean’s pictures here.

I hadn’t made any plans to go with anybody else, I was just going to stay in the front country and not go much into the back country. I figured I might have some time to head up to Clingman’s Dome. Technically to get to Clingman’s Dome you have to “hike” half a mile to the tower, so I would be heading into the back country, but not really, since Clingman’s Dome is usually populated by lots of people. After taking some shots at Clingman’s, on my way back I would stop at Morton Overlook for some sunset pictures.

I was a little bit late leaving the cookout, but I thought I should still have time to do what I wanted to do. Sunset on Saturday was going to be right around 7:00. To get to where I wanted to go from the cookout, there were a few options. I could head to Townsend and take 321 through Wear Valley and end up in Pigeon Forge, or I could Turn left at the Townsend Wye and take Little River Road to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap from there. The way I ended up taking was to go out to Chapman Highway and then take Veterans Boulevard to bypass as much of Pigeon Forge as I can and then take the Gatlinburg Bypass to get to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap.

I was wrong about the amount of time I would actually have. I figured there would be a lot of traffic leaving the Smokey Mountains, but I hadn’t expected as many people heading into them, since it was later in the day. It took almost 2 hours from the time I left Caroline’s house until I got up to Morton Overlook. That was about 25 minutes before sunset. Figuring I would have no time to get much of anything if I went up to Clingman’s Dome, I decided to just go ahead and get a spot at Morton Overlook. Morton Overlook is a popular place to photograph sunsets since it looks west. The Chimney Tops are also very prominent when looking out from Morton Overlook. Not only did it take a long time to get up to Newfound Gap, it took a long time to get back down. Traffic was backed up all the way to the Chimney’s picnic area from Gatlinburg. I guess my average speed was 5 miles per hour since it took just about an hour to get from the Chimney’s picnic area to Sugarlands (which is about 5 miles apart). After Sugarlands, I was able to get on the bypass. I got home later than I wanted, but all in all, I got some really good pictures that I am happy with, so it was definitely worth the hassle. You can view the rest of my pictures here.

Technorati Tags: christian student center, laurel church of christ, cookout, smoky mountains, fall colors, chimney tops, morton overlook, sunset, photography