All posts by Bc Hannold

A quick one this morning on living in today.

Here is some verse that I did some time ago. But it still makes sense so up it goes.

Each dawn I wake as fresh laid snow,

My impurities aside, hid ‘neath the mantle.

As spring fed ice, perfect and clear, Brilliant with light

And in the day, many choices, some black, some grey, some white.

To choose wisely, with heart, and mind, and life;

And near dark’s sweet embrace I review them each night.

Where was the wrong? Where was the right?

Which have I learned? Which is my way?

Yet today I have faith. Today I have sight

Each dawn I wake as fresh laid snow,

Perfect and white.

Bc Hannold

This one to me reminds that every day is a new day. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. It only matters what I do with today. This means that each morning when I awake I get a fresh start. I get to define today in terms of today, and I don’t have to carry the crushing burdens of yesterday forward.  Using this allows me to continue even in the worst of times, and helps keep me grounded in the best of times. No longer do I have to be a slave to my past.

How about a nice summer Smokies musing

Enough of the cold! This is a summer sunrise shot of the Ocnaluftee Valley from Newfound Gap Road.

Blue Mountain Home

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.


Psalm 23:6 (KJV)


This lofty aerie, from which I gaze;
This harbor in the sky, My haven away,
From which the trials of the day may drain.
Where happiness and joy may reign.
I reflect on time, I can rest unafraid;
Like a soft warm cloak on a winters day;
Warm, and safe, and secure;
And I know I am home.


Bc Hannold

This is the feeling I get when I am in Smokies. All of the trials of the day just to melt away, and life seems to take on a new meaning. Especially when I go to romp, and just take the little camera. It seems to not only lighten the load, it lightens the heart as well. I don’t feel pressured to get that perfect image like I sometimes do on the shooting forays in. Some days I just have to go for the journey.

Happy New Year – 2011

Any resolutions? I’ve not made any since history has shown that the grand designs imposed on New Years day typically do not work for me. A better approach for me has been using a daily resolution. Simpler and less daunting, but still requires a great deal of effort for the things that really matter. But there are things I want to change, one of them being the amount of time I spend with images, so in that vein here are a couple I took a couple days after Christmas. We had one of the largest snowfalls that I have seen since I’ve been down here. Over the Christmas weekend I believe we had around 9″ of snow, which is a lot for here. So the following Monday I headed out to Greenbrier. Basically all the roads in the park were closed, but Greenbrier is a decent spot to park at and hike in. I chose not to use the cross country skis, as they can be cumbersome and actually slow me down with that much gear. Plus the snow was very soft with an ice base so there would not be much glide using the skis.

I used two approaches for these shots, both from basically the same point. The first is a six shot HDR. I like using the HDR approach to capture a wider range of tones, but also for the dreamlike effect that can be created using it. Sometimes I will try to make the effect very subtle, as to not be noticeable, but other times I am looking for the effect to create an image that will stand out from the many images that were shot there that day. This one was done with six images, varying the shutter speed between exposures from 1.6 sec to 1/20 sec. One of the problems that day was being able to come up with a shutter speed slow enough to give some blur to the water. Even at ISO 50, I was stacking two ND grad filters, adjusted so that the dark area covered the entire lens, and still could not achieve a normal shutter speed of over a second. So the HDR effect helps the blur the water some in the final image. Here the HDR created image, after final tone and saturation adjustments in Lightrooom.

Greenbrier In Snow 6 shot HDR
Greenbrier In Snow 6 shot HDR

Here is the same shot as a single exposure after tone and color adjustments in Lightroom.

Greenbrier In Snow single exposure 1/2 sec at f16
Greenbrier In Snow single exposure 1/2 sec at f16

As you can see, the single shot has a bit more contrast and less motion blur than the HDR shot. The sensor does do a great job of capturing the range of tones in single shot though, but I do prefer the HDR image. The best advice I can give is that when you find a spot that you think is visually appealing, shoot it every which way but loose. Its always nice to have a choice when you back home and are going through the images. I spent 1/2 hour to 40 minutes at this spot for these images, and also stopped at the same spot on the way back to capture the following one because I had forgotten to capture it when I was doing the others.

This is a simple two shot pano stitched together in Photoshop. I was going to do a three shot HDR Pano, but my battery failed in the middle of shooting it. I need new batteries for my camera, so in the cold they fail really fast. I do keep them warm by placing them next my body, but once they get into the cold camera they don’t last long. Another trick you can use with a camera pack is to throw a hand warmer in a compartment with the batteries in your pack. You can only do this with a separate compartment! It is important to make sure the camera and lenses stay at ambient air temperature during your shoot. Otherwise you will have fog or ice on the lenses.

Greenbrier In Snow 2 shot Pano 1/50 sec at f16
Greenbrier In Snow 2 shot Pano 1/50 sec at f16

On this I did some brush work in lightroom to adjust the saturation in specific areas of the image after the overall tone and color adjustments.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, if you are so inclined. One of my goals (not resolutions) is to keep the blog updated more frequently, so look for more in the coming year.

Keep on clikin,

Bruce

Still Cold in East Tennessee

But after checking the Mt Leconte winter caretakers blog and seeing that the high there yesterday was -5, I don’t feel bad. Didn’t make it into the park yesterday, and I’ve got too much to get done today, So maybe Friday.

I decided a little sun and sand might help to change the mood a little. This one is called insignificant terns.

Insignificant Terns
Insignificant Terns

Almost anything you do will seem insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Ghandi

As I ponder at dark’s sweet call,
The day’s events I reminisce,
Some good, Some bad, but most – Not at all;
Yet these are my life at the very core;
These which matter most of all.
Bc Hannold

Happy Wednesday!

As long as snow and ice are the theme.

This image is also from the Mawikwe Bay ice caves.

Acceptance and Grace
Acceptance and Grace

For by grace are ye saved through faith;

and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Ephes. 2:8 (KJV)

Ere dawn I wake in faith and renew this Trek,
The trail unknown, yet trust has shown.
I choose not the path of ease or fame,
But accept the path before me.
Bc Hannold

The scripture in this one reminds that grace is a gift, that all I have to do is to accept it. To walk through the door into the light so to speak. The verse at the bottom reminds me that when I wake in the morning and plant my feet on the floor, that is the path I am on that day. While there are many choices throughout the day, at any given moment I am where I am. Where I have come from matters little, it where I am going to that counts.

Time to put Pen to Paper

Figuratively anyway. Time to get some posts up at least.

This is the photograph that got me hooked. Technically not perfect, but the composition just spoke to me. From this point on I was committed to the art. Shot with a fixed lens 5 mp Sony on a frozen section of Lake Superior. George and I are hiking out on the lake to get to the ice caves on Mawikwe Bay. These are sea caves carved out by the waves on Lake Superior. During the winter they become a wonder land of ice falls, ice stalagtites, and other ice formations. Occasionally the lake will freeze over hard enough that you can hike out to them.

Trekking to the Mawiki Ice Caves

Trekking to the Mawikwi Ice Caves

Be sure to call before you go. The National Park Service maintains the trail as part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The water by the cliffs that you are hiking on can run up to 60′ deep, and as we well know from song, Lake Superior does not up give her dead. You don’t want to push the edge on this one.

Mawikwi Ice Caves

Mawikwi Ice Caves

As the water flows through mineral deposits, different colors appear in the ice created by it.

As the water flows through mineral deposits, different colors appear in the ice.

Back on the horse again

Okay, I got the house down Florida redone. So now I’m back in Tennessee and can get back to basics.

At the moment I’m designing a website for my son, the musician. Check out TroySuggs.com in a week or so to check out some of his songs, and upcoming gigs in the Knoxville area.

On the photo front, I was stunned to when I finally got back to the Leconte Photographic Society meeting this month, which happened to be the annual awards meeting, and found that I had won the 2010 Best of the Best award for the star division for this image.

Mingus Mill on a cloudy fall day.

If your looking for a camera club in the Gatlinburg/Sevierville area, check out the Leconte website at

http://www.lecontephotographic.com/

They are an active bunch of photogs, and the images they are capturing are amazing.

If you are in the Morristown/Jefferson City area check out the Photographic Society of East Tennessee. http://pset.org/ You’ll also find some incredible talent there.

I’m still working on getting the Photographs on tiles up and running. Printer issues have slowed me a bit but the biggest challenge of course is getting the word out. I am available to do a Dye Sublimation Presentation if any groups in the area are interested.

Back to work. More a little later. I also hope to have the Poets Corner up and running with some content in the next few days.