Welp, it is sadly that time of year again!  That time where we bid farewell to the core of the Milky Way until it begins to rise in our morning skies in late February next year.  It is time to bid this night photography series adieu as well!  I wanted to end my series with what is definitely one of my favorite images of the year – the core of the Milky Way setting behind the smoke house at Dan Lawson’s place in Cades Cove. I have shot this building a number of times over the years, including earlier in the Milky Way season back in 2019, as the fireflies were still out and about, but it is a fun subject to keep coming back to.  As I have been playing with lights a lot more this year, I thought it would be fun to try lighting the building from the inside as the core set behind it.  Unfortunately this late in the year you don’t get much time with the Milky Way before it’s gone, but like last week’s image, the conditions just happened to work out and I ended up with a nice sky to go along with the foreground.  Funny enough, this particular spot sits kind of in a dark hole, and so I was struggling to light the foreground enough that I was happy with.  BUT, as I was shooting, a park ranger came through as he was ushering visitors out of the park and he happened to have all his lights on, which served to provide a LOT of light to my scene.  The blue lights even worked well I thought, as the cool light had almost a lunar feel to it.  Gotta love that!

Also wrapping up here in East Tennessee are the fall colors! 🙁 The autumnal brilliance showed up about two weeks early this year, which means my shooting is all but finished.  Not to worry though, it’ll be fall here on Picture of the Week starting next week, for the next several weeks, and we hope you’ll join us!

More next week!

–Dan Thompson