Favorite photos you've taken

[jwinslow]

Did you hear they closed the old church shop? :( That is how I got all my stuff in poor college days.

Columbus Camera Group? No I didn't.

 

[kinch]

Columbus Camera Group? No I didn't.

Yup, I glancingly saw something about it.

I suppose it would be a bit outdated now. But I really liked that place.

 

[jwinslow]

From the last day of the trip:

Pretty Place Chapel in Greenville, SC (at a YMCA camp)

 

[jwinslow]

A small sampling of the photos from the trip:



A few highlights:

Day 1 - Chimney Tops. I knew how steep the climb was, but I didn't realize how dicey it was at the top. Overall it wasn't too bad, but there was a nice 5' boulder with no foot holds and some girth to it as well. I have a big old backpack (with 25 lbs of photo gear) and my wife is 5' tall. A local climber helped us find a better way up. The way down, while skipping the boulder, had zero rock edges facing our way, so we had to wedge our selves into the crack and try to finagle points of contact and scoot our way down. Our favorite views were the ones involving serious danger Had we slipped with enough speed, the trail below was only about 2 feet wide before a multi hundred foot drop.

Storm clouds were a staple of this trip. They ruined this sunset (we really weren't planning on it, and so we bailed early and went for dinner), brought a brooding set of clouds towards our cabin another night and transformed my planned sunrise another day (the sun-ray picture from before)

We were lucky to see 5 bear, including one momma with two cubs. They stayed 150+ yds away, while another one (Charlotte, the 3rd pic) at another location got a bit too close (60 yds?).

The sun never quite escaped before dawn but boy did it later (as posted before)

We tried to go back 2 days later (original forecast earlier in the week called for sun), and the entire bypass was shut down for major snowfall. They opened it up later that morning. Up near Clingman's dome, it was still a whiteout with 4" of snow. When we reached the bottom it was 70 & sunny. Frankly it was partly sunny 5 miles south of clingman's dome's parking lot.

We took a few extra days and visited North Carolina (and briefly SC). It is so beautiful down there (quite a bit nicer than the Smokies, frankly). There are some big things in the smokies but you usually only see a few ridge lines. There are so many spots in North Carolina where the mountain ridges go on for miles in many if not all directions.

On a whim, we decided to add a sunset summit trip for our final evening. We stayed too long at dinner, got lost, ended up on the wrong summit path (which was 2x as long). So we had to race up a 2 mile very uneven (jagged rocks, roots, trenches) trail at absolute full speed. I narrowly beat the sun to the top. This was literally 20 seconds after I reached the top. It dropped behind that mountain 60 seconds later.

On the way back, in the pitch black (with a lantern), something about 1.5-2 feet tall (and very black) sprinted across the skinny trail just in front of me (about 10-15 yds). It raced into the dense brush to my right but definitely stayed there. This isn't an open mountain trail. It is a tight series of switchbacks cut into the dense wild growth. So going backwards means crossing paths with the animal that just crossed. Going forwards means risking the chance that another animal is lurking there (you know, like a momma black bear trailing behind her cub). Thankfully we never found out the answer. It was too dark to see what it was, but it was not that small and looked about the size of the cubs I had seen a day earlier.

Went on a waterfall tour. So many butterflies along the way

The previously posted Pretty Place chapel at the YMCA camp in Greenville SC

We also went to a heavily populated overlook at Max Patch in North Carolina. The hike was simple and there were lots of people picnicking and enjoying nature. It was a nice spot, but given the full tilt race against the mountain to reach the top, it just didn't have the same appeal. It was still beautiful.

We will be back to the Carolinas soon. We only had a brief time there and it was incredible.

 

[scarletmike]

Man, I really need to make a trip to either the Smokies or the Rockies for photography. Those are some gorgeous photos.

 

[jwinslow]

Man, I really need to make a trip to either the Smokies or the Rockies for photography. Those are some gorgeous photos.

Spend a little time in the smokies and a LOT of time in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Here's one of the best guys out there (I actually ran into him on the roadside during that sunset pic):

http://www.daveallenphotography.com/landscape.php

 

[MD Buckeye]

Couple sunset shots from Ocean City, MD.

 

[jwinslow]

So we lost a few months of posts...?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

@jwinslow

There are apparently two threads for favorite photos....

 

[scarletmike]

Woah...we did. That's unfortunate and strange.

EDIT: That would explain it. Someone should probably merge them.

 

[jwinslow]

Digging through my archives, I stumbled across some photos I took with a point and shoot 9 years ago on a holiday stroll along the beach near my hometown in Michigan. These unique creations are caused by frozen sand being carved up by constant wind on the lake shore.

 

[fanaticbuckeye]

I'm no professional, but have started getting into photography over the last few years, mainly for the kids. But as I've done it more, have started enjoying taking pictures of random scenes, abandoned barns, old stuff, etc. For Memorial Day we went to Lakeside Marblehead and Catawba and took some pictures...

First two are at Catawba for sunset...



This one is near a little cove with an old truck just staring at the lake...


House near Marblehead Lighthouse...

Last one is a picture of my 8 month + pregnant wife in front of the Catawba sunset.

 

[scarletmike]

Great pictures!

On a side note; that aperture blade image seems to be popular as a watermark/logo part. I know at least 2 people in my photography circle that use it, and see it all the time when I'm just scrolling through Flickr looking for ideas or at locations I'll be traveling to. Is it like a standard clip art file?

 

[fanaticbuckeye]

Great pictures!

On a side note; that aperture blade image seems to be popular as a watermark/logo part. I know at least 2 people in my photography circle that use it, and see it all the time when I'm just scrolling through Flickr looking for ideas or at locations I'll be traveling to. Is it like a standard clip art file?

Thanks!

There is a tutorial online how to create that file in Adobe Elements/Photoshop; so being able to make it and throw initials or logo in the middle was simple enough to do. That was my criteria, what can I figure out how to do with a limited mental capacity.

 

[scarletmike]

Thanks!

There is a tutorial online how to create that file in Adobe Elements/Photoshop; so being able to make it and throw initials or logo in the middle was simple enough to do. That was my criteria, what can I figure out how to do with a limited mental capacity.

Ah, an online tutorial. That would explain why its so common.

Are you using Elements, or full Photoshop for your post processing? If those are results from Elements, those are surprisingly great results, better than I would have expected out of it.