On October 2nd, I participated in another great Worldwide Photo Walk. This year, the event hosted over 1,100 walks with over 28,000 photographers around the world. I chose Bristol Virginia, where I followed Walk Leader Chris Duncan and about 25 other walkers around State Street in Bristol TN/VA. I hadn’t really toured around State Street much in the past, so this was a nice way to see the area.
We just got home from our vacation on Atlantic Beach. I have to blame Christy for this one, she picked out this destination in March. We had talked for years about going to the outer banks, and Emily has been begging to go to the beach for a couple of years now. So this week long get away was perfect.
Now that summer is in full swing, I like to get out in the coolness of the forest and look for waterfalls, or Geocaches. We didn’t get to go out much last year with Ella’s arrival, but we plan to go more this year. I found this falls a couple of years ago with the help from the Waterfalls list at Tennessee Landforms. But every time we went back to photograph it, the gate was closed. As luck would have it, yesterday was the perfect day for us to go. The trail isn’t too bad, but it brings you out at the top of the falls. You will have to navigate down a steep trail to the bottom, but it’s pretty good with plenty of Laurels in ideal locations for hand holds as you hike down to the bottom pool. As always, keep your eye on the little ones. Emily did fine going down, but with pine needles, and loose dirt, it could become slippery. It really is just a short hike from the fire road, so all ages should enjoy the hike.
One of my favorite subjects to photograph has always been live bands. I tend to just stay local, Johnson City or Bristol, Tennessee, but there are some pretty cool venues to work with. These images were shot at Capone’s in Johnson City. Capone’s really has the stage dialed in for great sound and lighting. The lighting is a huge help for someone like me who is just trying to get some cool photographs of his friends and artist playing live. I mostly use only ambiant light and keep the flash down as to keep with the feel of the performance, but that introduces other problems with color cast, and trying to get an acceptable skin tone. With the color cast, we could always revert to black and white… but what’s the fun in that!