Light and shadows

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

One last shot from the trip to the mountains a few weeks ago. The leaf is really a fantastic subject (the veins, in particular). I just wasn't there at the right time of day. The shadows are obviously painfully harsh, and there was really no way around overexposing parts of the image. No doubt, this isn't the type of picture you put near the front of your portfolio. It's a C image at best.

That said, I still think it has some redeeming characteristics. I like to work a shot- it's a lot of fun to go some place ordinary and to try to find a shot that is a jaw dropper. This isn't a jaw dropper, but I do think it's a nice example of how you can find an interesting shot if you look hard enough.

Vet School Calendar Contest

Last week, my dad asked me what ever happened with the vet school calendar submissions. Here's an update. Last year, I got 2 of 3 images I submitted into the calendar. This year, I only got 1 of 4, which must mean that I am regressing as a photographer!!!

The shot that got in was the shot I considered most likely to get in- "Aslan's Portrait", a picture I took at the North Carolina zoo in August.



A second shot, "Pasture Princess", was an "honorable mention" selection, which basically just means it didn't get in.



Hopefully, I'll take some shots this next year that I can submit. However, I don't do much animal photography. As a result, I'm thinking that I'll focus my efforts instead on trying to get something into my favorite magazine, Our State North Carolina. I'm 0 for 1 on past submissions there, but I just recently submitted my second shot, and I'll submit some more for their annual reader's photo contest.

Reflections on Sunday morning

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

There are a lot elements that I like in this picture. I like the fall colors, I like the reflection, and I really like the fly fisherman near the middle of the image. There are always things that I see in an image and wish I'd done differently. For instance here, I wish I could walk on water so that I had been about half as far from the fisherman, and then he is also a little out of focus. It's fine for this size of an image, but I'd want to use a different version of the shot for anything larger. But really, altogether, I think it turned out nicely. If you'd like to see a larger version, here's something a little bigger.

We really lucked out with the pictures at this location. I think I took 40 pictures of this fisherman. When we pulled out our gear, he was actually fishing further downstream, behind us here, at a location that wasn't particularly scenic. However, as we were setting up, he walked right into this scene, and I couldn't be happier that he did so.

This concludes the photo journal from the fall colors trip. My father-in-law's camera is back in Iowa (thanks Dave!), I don't have a lot of time for photography, and post-fall colors, NC is marginal for photography anyway. That all adds up to this site probably being slow until at least Thanksgiving.

Graveyard Fields

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture at Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a few miles south of Mt. Pisgah, which is itself maybe 20 miles south of Asheville, NC.

I've been to the NC mountains four times for fall colors. This year and 2006 were the two best years I've seen. In 2006, basically all of the deciduous trees in the mountains changed to golden yellows and oranges all at once, regardless of elevation. It made for absolutely stunning vistas. This year, the color is a bit more spotty, but there are more deep reds than I've ever seen before. This shot came from the most striking location we saw all weekend.

Tomorrow, I'll post my last shot from the fall colors photography trip.

Brilliant Reds

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

The reds were particularly impressive in the mountains this year, and these trees were the reddest of the reds we saw. We encountered them along NC Hwy. 215, just a few miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We parked at a safe spot along the road and then walked back down the mountain side to take this shot. Heavy brush along the roadside meant that only a narrow window was open to capture these trees on the mountainside on the opposite side of the valley.

The key to this shot- and in my mind, the key to most shots- is the circular polarizer. It makes colors pop. Never leave home without one!

I don't think that this is a great shot photographically speaking, but I think it's nice from the perspective that you can really see just how nice the reds were this year. To that end, I've posted another version that is a little bit more artistic, as it has a more defined subject, but doesn't do quite as good of a job of showing what the mountains of southwest NC looked like this year.

There is a sad side to this picture- I inadvertently changed my ISO setting prior to taking the pictures at this location. Instead of shooting ISO 100, I shot ISO 800. It added some grain to my image, and consequently, I won't be able to blow this picture up much higher than 5x7.

Devil's Courthouse

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture on the Blue Ridge Parkway, south of Asheville, NC at a popular mountaintop called Devil's Courthouse. If you ever get a chance to drive the parkway, this stop at milepost 422.4 is a must. The hike to the top is a bit strenuous (i.e. it's straight up), but at the top, you can see four states (NC, SC, Tennessee, and Georgia).

As for the picture, I'm pleased with it. The dead trees and yellow leaves make for nice foreground, and a stone face always gives a mountaintop character.

One last comment- historically, I've uploaded my files for this blog to my personal web space and then linked to the images. For technical reasons, right now I'm uploading them straight to blogger. I feel like it's creating some issues with my images (i.e. the colors are more dramatic when I view the images in GIMP or Adobe than at this site). I'll try to get it worked out in the next few days.

Another shot from Looking Glass Falls

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I had planned to post just the last three waterfall shots from last weekend. However, after revisiting my images, I like this version of Looking Glass Falls as well.

Blueridge Parkway fall colors coming next week.

Looking Glass Falls (updated)

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Looking Glass Falls was the one waterfall we visisted last weekend that I had actually been to before. I've actually been there several times. In fact, when we were there in May 2007 with our friends Natalie and Bernardo, I took a shot from this very location, sans the fall color.

One comment about the manipulation of this image- as happy as I am with GIMP, this is one place where I miss Photoshop. I haven't figured out yet how to lighten up harsh shadows in GIMP, something that is pretty easy in Photoshop. The log in the foreground here has some really nice character, but you lose it in the shadows.

This picture concludes the waterfall portion of this slideshow of pictures I took last weekend. Up next will be fall colors from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

(Those who don't like the placement of the tree in this image, might prefer an alternative framing. The major problem here is that the focus isn't quite right, meaning that I could never blow this picture up as big as the on posted.)

Middle Falls

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture in Dupont State Forest, near the North Carolina and South Carolina state line. Incidentally, Dupont State Forest is often the site of the national trail marathon championships, but that's a subject for another hobby.

Middle Falls is one third of Triple Falls. Along with Linville Falls near Boone, I think that Triple Falls is the nicest waterfall in North Carolina. The movie Last of the Mohicans was shot in this area, and the landscape really is lovely.

This shot's greatest shortcoming is the white sky. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to wait for a clearing, but certainly, it's the kind of flaw that separates an okay shot from a better shot.

Preview of coming attractions

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Here's one of the shots I took this weekend on my cousin and my fall colors/NC waterfalls photography road trip. When we stopped to take this shot, we thought we were photographing Catawba Falls, but in fact, we were photographing a pair of falls downstream of the named cascade. Nevertheless, it's an interesting location. The upper right of this picture is actually an old dam. The water escapes through a hole in the upper left.

A quick comment on the photo. I no longer have access to Photoshop. However, my father-in-law has introduced me to a free program called GIMP that is absolutely fantastic. It has most of the capabilities of Photoshop, and for those that it lacks, I just use the Adobe Elements program that came with my PC. I'm very happy with the result, shown here.

Finally, I'd simply remark that this is the first waterfall I have photographed since my class in Oregon. I was very happy with the pictures I took out there, but I worried that my success was largely a function of having an instructor over my shoulder. Hence, I like this picture for a lot of reasons but one is that it reassures me that I did take home some helpful lessons from the class (not just nice photographs).

Pictures coming soon!!!

In August, my cousin moved to Durham from the Pacific Northwest. Unlike me, he's a legitimate photographer, who has shown in galleries in the Tacoma area. This weekend, we went to the NC mountains for a weekend of shooting waterfalls and fall colors. He took this shot of me, when I was shooting what we thought was Catawba Falls, but actually proved to be just a little waterfall downstream of it.

I'm having some technical issues that will prevent me from posting pictures for a few days, but they should be coming later this week or early next week. I am cautiously optimistic that I managed to take some pretty decent shots, so make sure to check back in for updates.