Happy summer everyone! This week Picture of the Week is traveling back home to the Smokies and going back to night mode!
Earlier in the spring, when Orion was slowly disappearing from our night sky and the core of the Milky Way was returning, I went up to the Chimney’s trailhead to capture another classic Smokies scene, but at night. In March, the trees were still bare, while the core of the Milky Way got high enough in the sky to see it in a place of prominence above where Road Prong joins the West Prong of the Little River. I captured this scene back in the Fall of 2022, though with much less water, and just absolutely love the dynamic the bridges add to the scenes that can be found at this spot – all of which inspired this image. To create this, I used some small LED lights to illuminate the rocks and then had my wife Holly illuminate the trees and the bridge using another light. After capturing the sky I was able to put it all together into the image you see here.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson