It’s funny how you can spend so much time in a place, and still see new things. If you follow along on this blog, you’ve no doubt gathered that I spend a good amount of time in Cades Cove. It is, admittedly, my happy place. Some photographers can work the same subject over and over and never get bored of it… not me though. If I get a shot of something, I rarely shoot it again (there are a few exceptions). Not so with Cades Cove though. There are just so many “scenes” there, it seems like I never run out of subjects.
Last month on Father’s Day, my friend Steve and I went to the Cove to catch a sunrise and as we were wandering down Sparks Lane, I joked that it seemed that he and I had struck out on subjects the last few times we had gone shooting together… I was joking, because I was feeling it coming again. Sometimes you just can’t find anything good to shoot, or the light just doesn’t play in your favor. As we walked along a fence row, he suggested we should walk through one of the horse fields. Somehow, I’d never walked through that field. As you saw on my Father’s Day post, the light turned really nice and things started clicking (no pun intended… really). Where I had, just minutes earlier, been doubting… I now found myself, literally running through a field, completely energized by what I was seeing and taking pictures of. THAT’S what makes getting up early worth it!
–Dan Thompson