Blue Ridge Parkway - Meadows of Dan

The Meadows of Dan makes a great stopping point along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I tend to want to spend the night there because it is the closest place to spend the night near Mabry Mill. Getting up for sunrise photos is MUCH easier when you are close to your subject. We've stayed at the Meadows of Dan RV park and thought it was a nice place. This time we stayed at the Blue Ridge Motel. It is an older hotel, but the owners were very friendly and it also made a good place to stay. Our ATT cell phone service had no signal and we had no internet, but for one night in this area it was worth it.

We had dinner at the Mountain House Restaurant. They served a great buffet of "home cooked" food.



The Poor Farmer's Market is a must stop. Not only was there fresh produce - squash, apples, pumpkins, tomatoes, etc, but inside the store was Amish fresh churned butter, jellies, fresh baked goods, fresh local cheeses, specialty teas, etc. I spent thirty minutes wandering through the store and we left with breads and crisp sweet apples. If we had been in the RV, I would have bought both cheese and the churned butter.

Mabry Mill

Mabry Mill is probably one of the most photographed locations. Although I've been there at sunset, it is really a sunrise or cloudy day place because the best vantage point to catch both the mill and the pond is from the east looking west. The last time I was there, I was the only photographer out. This time, I was a late comer to a group of photographers that were part of a workshop. They had obviously been there awhile and were everywhere trying to get the best angle. I had overslept and realized quickly that I had probably already missed the "best" light. The sun was already catching the trees behind the mill - so the exposure difference between the trees and the mill was too great for the sensor. So I shot for HDR - basically three or more exposures one stop apart until I could get the background trees exposed and the darkest areas around the water wheel. Right now I'm working shots both with Photomatix and the HDR function of Photoshop. This time the Photoshop version just didn't work even after two tries. But the Photomatix version had its issues as well - there was a blown out area in the water where the blue sky was too bright. The yellow reflection in the water from the trees was also too bright. When shooting foliage, photomatix also can make the leaves look not quite sharp enough. So, I used a dodge and burn technique to tone down the bright yellow reflection. I cropped out the reflected sky. I created a duplicate background layer so I could sharpen the trees and leaves more. And then on the dodge and burn layer, I add just a little bit of warm color to brighten every thing.



The light was changing fast and the lighting on the mill was going to be speckled - too much difference between the bright early morning sun and the shadows from the trees. While I was a little frustrated that I had not gotten there earlier, I took time to do some panoramic shots. Because we were trying to follow foliage, I knew we couldn't stay in the area another day for a reshoot. I needed to get to the Great Smokies before the foliage there was all gone.

I'll be playing with the shots I did take for awhile. Here is one taken when the sun was a little higher. It is actually a stitch of two photos that I've turned into digital art using Topaz Vivacity.

Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is 469 miles of lovely driving. No stop signs, no stop lights, just smooth cruising through beautiful scenery. Designed and built in the 1930's, construction started in 1935. Most of the construction was completed by 1967. The last 7.5 miles were completed in 1987. The Linn Cove Viaduct was specially built to prevent cutting through a beautiful stretch of ancient mountains. To read more about the amazing engineering of this elevated road, go to the Blue Ridge Parkway Association's webpage.

We usually spend about three days going down the Parkway. Our very first visit to the Parkway was in the 1970's. We had a very limited amount of time. We were coming up from the south and got as far as Mount Mitchell. From the top of Mount Mitchell, there was a sea of clouds that was just beautiful. However, the Parkway became engulfed in fog, we finally had to descend to the valleys because there was no visibility even for driving much less sight seeing. We've been back several times since and it is truly beautiful.

One of the nicest things about this road is that it follows the ridges, so there are many opportunities to look down to the valleys below from the overlooks. However, I find that while the view is gorgeous, it is difficult to photograph. Each of the overlooks is "maintained" by regularly trimming the trees that keep trying to grow into the view. That makes it difficult sometimes to get a "clean" image. Because you are on top of a ridge, you can see long distances. But I find it also makes it hard to get good sharp images of the details in the distance.

Here is one of my attempts to capture the beauty from one of the overlooks:



When I view this image at the pixel level, it does not match my standards for sharpness anywhere. However, I liked the image with the patchwork of farms and pastures in the valley, so I played with the Topaz sharpening filter. It worked better for this purpose when I had resized the image. I think I prefer this artistic version. You may need to click on the images to get a larger version to see better the effect:



I tried to take advantage of the trees that were on the ridge by the road. I focused on the leaves of the tree on the right. I think this image works except for one branch in the middle foreground that I could not quite find an angle without it.



One last image for today, the fall colors were gorgeous:

Creativity and Photography

There are so many ways to be creative with photography in the digital age. I am a firm believer that it is important to capture an image as well as you can to begin with - I don't shoot with the thought "I can fix it in Photoshop." But I also enjoy exploring the creative things you can do both "in camera" and in Photoshop that take an ordinary scene and make it something beautiful.
As I work through the images I took on our fall trip, I ran across this one. Taken at the beginning of our drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway, this beautiful fall tree drew my attention, called to me.



The sun was cooperating by hiding behind a clouding, so that if I waited patiently I could get soft lighting. The rocks seemed an interesting foreground. The catch: the wind was blowing just enough to cause some motion blur of the leaves in places at my preferred ISO 100 for landscapes. I played a little in photoshop to get the rocks nicely exposed and then did a little bit of dodging and burning to make the tree look "good."

I found that it seemed pretty, but perhaps ordinary.

I purchased Topaz Adjust and Topaz Vivacity during the summer. After playing around with the Adjust filter, I went over to Vivacity and came up with this version:



I went back to the original and played around with the Photoshop artistic filters to try to find an artistic effect that would work with this shot. Then I went back to Topaz Vivacity to get the finished look I wanted.



After posting this, I added even more saturation to bring out more of the reds.



I think I like this last version the best, because it keeps the deep reds in the tree, but still gives this a more painted look.
Which one do you like best?

To get the full effect of these photos, you can click on each one and get a larger view.