Every year I try to capture the fireflies in the Smokies. There’s just something fun about the process. Their light is so faint you don’t really know if you’re getting anything (unless one flies right by the lens, as in this case) or not – you just sort of have to trust that you’ve remembered how to do it, and hope that there are enough bugs to show up in the scene.
This year I waited and waited for the skies to clear, but June was a cloudy month for us here in East Tennessee. So, rather than including any sort of night sky, I just decided to focus on this classic scene of the John Oliver cabin. As is often the case for my lightning bug images, my friend Ryan Yoder and I went out to shoot them together. It’s always helpful to collaborate on lighting and compositional ideas!
More next week!
–Dan Thompson