Last year when I doubled-down on perfecting my stream scenes, I decided to just “work” the streams up Tremont Road in the Smokies. Rather than bouncing all over the park to the various streams, I figured I’d be just as well off walking up one stream and seeing what I could find. Well, over a year into that journey and I’ve made it maybe a mile up Middle Prong and Thunderhead Prong (Thunderhead Prong made it in my 5 Favorite images last year). I chose Thunderhead Prong because there is just something about it that I liked. It’s smaller and has less water, which means it’s easier to get the whole stream in a single scene, and it’s easier to navigate. Lower water levels also means it’s mossy, so fall scenes end up having a lot of color to them… but when combined with the rhododendrons, it can maybe be too much green and not enough yellow, orange, and red of the fall foliage.
As an illustration of how many scenes you can find, even in such a small stream, the scene above is actually in the scene immediately below! If you look at the picture just below this text, up and left of center, you’ll see the cascade that’s pictured above, but with more water flowing through it (taken on different days). That’s what I mean by “working the stream”… I literally just start moving through the stream, finding images, and then continuing on up the stream. It’s SO much fun! The third image this week is of a little cascade that just happened to catch my eye when I was walking out one morning. The water levels were just at the right height to not overwhelm these rocks, and give a nice path for the water to flow through the scene.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson
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