Mabry Mill

A picture of Mabry Mill on the Blueridge Parkway this past Sunday evening. Between the ducks in the pond mucking up the reflection and the plethora of folk milling about, it was a chore to get a pic that wasn't full of, uh, 'undesirables'.

Rocky Fork

Here's two HDR'd pics I made from yesterday's trip to Rocky Fork in Unicoi county.

Iced Trees

I took the women-folk on a ride across Unaka mountain this afternoon and came across this oddity. It had been cold enough snow the night before and the spruce trees were covered in rime ice ... pretty cool, huh?

Steam Whistles

I went to the train show in Erwin this AM, camera in hand, hoping to find some photo-worthy subjects like old railroad lanterns and such ... and ... I found almost nothing.

It was just too crowded inside for any pictures. But there was a guy outside selling some spendy railroad stuff out of a trailer, and he had this rack of steam whistles for sale. I had to wait around quite a while for a chance to get this picture without arms or backs of heads.

A 5-frame, faux-HDR, processed with Lightroom and HDR Efex Pro.

Marion Fish Hatchery

This picture is of the aerators at the Marion Fish Hatchery in, you guessed it, Marion Va. I can remember going to the hatchery on field trips back when I was in grade school. In all honesty I was surprised it was still in operation.

I saw them from the road as I drove by as was immediately struck by the color and shape ... they are so cool looking! It was closed when I got there but the nice lady that works there saw me taking a picture from outside the fence and let me come inside and walk around to take all the pictures I wanted ... she was a really nice lady. She had two 'plow dogs' that kept me company while I walked around.

It was so bright that a slow shutter speed was out of the question. And the center three were in partial shade making it that much worse. So what I ended up with was this over-cooked, faux-HDR version. It's ok, but I definitely want to go back some day when the conditions are better for picture taking.

Marion Train Station

I saw a recent picture of the train station in Marion Va. What caught my eye was that the construction dumpsters were gone! The last time I was by there the place was being refitted for some retail shops and there were several dumpsters and lots of trucks all around the place. Definitely not ready for pictures.

Once I got there and walked around I realized that it might never be ready. The retail-ization of the property has cluttered the property so much that any picture will be 'busy'. So I snapped a bracket from the best angle available and ran them through HDR Efex Pro and then straight to Photoshop for some serious clutter removal. After a good amount of work I decided to convert it to black and white, crop it rather tight and add the vignette for an 'old timey' look. It turned out rather well.

Dorothy

This picture is of Dorothy, the shay at the Little River Railroad museum in Townsend TN. The weather couldn't have been worse for picture-taking: 95 degrees and hazy - which led to the odd-looking crop to get rid of as much of the flat gray sky as possible.