A Short Detour On My Way West

I'm on my way from home to Hovenweep National Monument to work as a volunteer this summer and, when I drive through MS on I-20 I like to stop by the Tupelo Bald Cypress Swamp on the Natchez Trace north of Jackson. I don't always get there at the right time of day, of when the weather is decent, but this trip I was able to get a couple of shots that I liked:

Both were shot with a D800E and 24-70mm lens with a Singh Ray LB Color Combo filter.

Nik (Google) Viveza 2 To The Rescue

One of my favorite of the Nik filter collection is Viveza 2, which I use on occasion to add a little pop to an image or do some selective color correction. An example of this is a photo I took recently of the sun burning through the fog in Cades Cove. The original didn't look too bad:

Original RAW file

The sun, though, was much brighter and more defined in reality, so I selected 'edit in' Viveza 2 in Lightroom. I then added a color control point at the center of the sun, shrunk it to fit the correct diameter, and then increased the brightness so it looked like this:

Edited

I also added a bit of contrast and structure enhancement while in the filter.

As you can see, the changes are subtle, but I think made a dramatic improvement to the image. It also made the image appear, to me anyway, more like the actual scene looked, and I hope helped to convey the sense of serenity that was there at the time.

Smoky Mountains Black Bears in the Springtime

This is a short slideshow of some bear photos I took the last week of April, 2013 in the Smoky Mountains.

The bears were very active and we saw two sows with this year cubs and one with yearlings as well as several juvenile and adult bears.

These shots were all taken with a Nikkor 200-400mm lens and a 1.4x teleconverter, and I always maintained a safe distance from the bears. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the folks watching them, but hopefully there will be a lot of volunteers this summer to keep the crowds at bay.

Some Spring Wildflowers in the Smokies

Since our trip this past week was my one and only spring trip to the Smokies this year before heading out to Utah for the summer I tried to shoot a variety of subjects (other than just bears). The flowers were a bit past their prime, but we did find some pretty ones. Unfortunately the conditions for shooting weren't ideal, breezy and bad light, so I had to shoot hand held at high ISO just to capture the flowers as they moved around, so the images are noisier than I would like.

Wild Geranium

Rue Anemone

Fiddlehead

Chamomile

Yellow Trillium

Dog Hobble

Columbine

If I have misidentified any of these plants please let me know, I am far from an expert on wildflowers but I do love to photograph them and I hope you enjoy looking at them. For thse images I used a Nikkor 105mm macro lens on a D800E and mostly a D3s camera, the D3s does better with high ISO where the D800E has a lot greater resolution.

A Coyote Gets Lucky, a Turkey Not So Much

On our last visit to Cades Cove in the Smokies we were fortunate enough to get some good looks at a coyote hunting in the fields for a couple of days, and on the second day he made his big score. Here are some shots of the coyote working the fields, listening for voles and other tasty critters:

On the second day he came up on a turkey and spooked it up a tree; my guess is that bird flew up about 45 feet:

The coyote went on about his hunt and crossed the road to the fields there. I stayed at the tree and watched the turkey. After a time the turkey seemed to be having trouble figuring out how to get down out of the tree:

The bird eventually lost its perch and fell down through the branches of the tree. It looked like it hit its head or back on the way down, and it hit the ground with and audible thud:

When the bird hit the ground the coyote came tearing back across the road and made a bee line for where it landed. The struggle was brief and the prize went to the coyote:

The coyote dragged the turkey off aways and then started plucking feathers to make it easier to carry and eat:

Finally the coyote took off with his prize:

The moral of the story, for the turkeys out there, is don't fly up higher than you can fly down from.

Smoky Mountains Black Bears

Here are some more bear photos from our last Smokies trip. We saw *lots* of bears, and I believe these are all separate animals.

All images taken with a Nikon D3s and 200-400mm lens on a Gitzo tripod with a Wimberly gimbal head.

All images ©Charlie Choc, All Rights Reserved

Bathing Bear

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Drinking Bear

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Curious Bear

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Looking at You

Black bear, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Peek a Boo

Black bear, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Smoky Mountains Fall Landscapes

These are some landscape images I took on our last couple of trips to the Smokies. The weather that is moving through the area now will probably blow down most of the leaves so I think the fall color show is mostly over.  All images ©Charlie Choc, All Rights Reserved

 

Early Morning Color

Foothills Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Here Comes the Sun

Foothills Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Pre Dawn Light

Foothills Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Falling Colors

Laurel Creek Road, Grat Smoky Mountains National Park

Twisted Tree

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Smokies Color Palette

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Morning Light

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fall 2012

Evening Light

Sparks Lane, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Early Fall Color

Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A Taste of Things to Come

A bit of early fall color in Cades Cove

Pretty Bales All in a Row

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Alfred Regan's Tub Mill

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Sunlit Rock

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park