Welcome back everyone! I hope you all have had a nice, long, 4th of July weekend, or at least got to spend some time with friends and family. There have been multiple times where I couldn’t remember what day it was – a true sign of vacationing for me personally, or a sign of my age. 🙂
I wanted to end this particular series on the Smokies After Dark with my favorite scene of the bunch. I actually spotted this scene back in the Spring, during the annual Tremont Photography Workshop. As we were trying back to a sunrise location, I happened to notice that the Milky Way would line up over the Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church. It took me a few more months to get the shot, due to weather and being out of town, but I was pleased to be able to finally put it all together. As with most elsewhere in the park, being able to shoot a scene wide enough to see a lot of the night sky often involves also seeing a lot of trees. This particular church basically sits in a hole in the woods, as you can tell from the image above. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about the imposing branches at the top of the image, but I later decided I really liked it, since it accurately tells the story of the church.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson