Outer Banks Adventure

Whenever we go on a family vacation we often search for a vacation home by owner to stay somewhere different than a standard hotel room...and hopefully have a unique view to photograph.  So I was extremely excited when we found this restored Lifesaving Station isolated in the dunes near Currituck beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It was perfect, an oceanfront rental, separated from the over-development and crowds at other beaches, with wild horses for neighbors, and vintage architecture to photograph!  This Quonochontaug-type Life-Saving Station was built in 1903 and has a very interesting history:

"It was a time when every ship that sailed past these shores risked destruction from the perilous shoals or sudden storms.  It was a time when United States Lifesaving Crewmen kept watch from station houses such as this, risking their lives to save those hapless mariners."

Happy family!

Happy family!

The house made an interesting subject as it sat alone in the dunes very much like the sentinel watch station if was over a hundred years ago.  Each sunrise and sunset I went out to take pictures of the home from the endless compositions the dunes provided.

But the house wasn't the only interesting subject.  There are approximately 90 wild horses living on the island and occasionally they would walk right past the house.  One morning I was lucky enough to find two of them playing in our front yard.

However I worked hardest at getting some night photographs of the Lifesaving Station as I imagined it, years ago, with it's lights on at night ready to rescue those in need.

Sam's Knob

Trusting the weather forecast for clear night skies, I setup on top of Sam's Knob in the Pisgah National Forest to photograph the Milky Way later that night.  I was concerned when I arrived to see all the clouds still in the sky over Black Balsam Knob shortly before sunset but the massive Cumulonimbus cloud made a beautiful canvas for the setting sun!  Fortunately the sky to the west was clear so I went to sleep very excited about seeing the stars later that night.

I got up twice during the night to photograph the Milky Way in different positions in the sky with respect to the campsite and other interesting rocks.  I used my tent as a giant "softbox" by putting a flash inside and using the tent to diffuse the light to illuminate the foreground and myself.  The Milky Way is amazing and stretches across the entire sky.  However the brightest spot is closest to the southern horizon.  Therefore once I had a good image of the foreground, I started taking multiple images following the Milky Way above me which I then stitched together into a panorama in Lightroom.  Finally I merged the foreground photographs with the panorama to create these huge images of the night sky.

I was treated to another unexpected bonus on the drive home.  I took the scenic route along the Blue Ridge Parkway, stopping at a few overlooks to see the sunrise.  However as I came up on the Buck Spring Tunnel the low angle of the sun was beautifully lighting the tunnel.  Passing through the darkness into the warm sunrise I was thankful for this beautiful world and the "light of life" God has provided.

"Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12, ESV)

Catskill Waterfalls

While visiting the Catskill Mountains in New York I went out hiking to photograph several area lakes and waterfalls.  I was inspired by the vintage Adirondack postcards at the Hotel Mountain Brook to stylize these photos with a slightly muted and vintage look.  As you can see I had a lot of fun hiking and included myself in a few of the photos by using my camera's timelapse feature to continually shoot photos while I jumped and climbed around the rocks.  This worked great until a big gust of wind pushed over my tripod sending my camera down 10 feet into a crevice in the rocks.  Luckily my Sony A7R camera, 35mm lens, and I only suffered a few scratches!