Worthy of My Portfolio

Excerpted from Season: A Collection of Photographs and Stories

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I’d just left the house in Maggie Valley on a lovely afternoon in June 2017, and my photography buddy Steve pulled up beside me in his Toyota pickup at a red light.

“Where you headin,’ bro?”

“To Craggy.”

“I’m headed out that way too. See you there!”

Given my love affair with the much-visited Craggy Pinnacle (located north of Asheville, North Carolina) over the years, I had never captured a sunset scene to my liking. Partly because I was still learning the finer points of technique and composition, partly because all the right ingredients for sunset magic never quite came together. Up until 2017, I had zero sunset images from Craggy Pinnacle that were worthy of my portfolio.

But the magic finally happened on this occasion. We could not have picked a better day to come, as the rhododendron blooms were nearing peak and the skies looked especially promising. 

Once we arrived, we made the short hike to the lower overlook (where the compositions there were less than thrilling), then to the upper overlook, where Steve’s friend Serge joined in. While Steve busied himself with “adventure” photos featuring Serge, I broke off back down the trail to the intersection of the upper and lower overlook trails, then straight on to a large patch of blooming rhododendron that weren’t quite to peak bloom, but bloomed “just enough” to still make for a nice, colorful foreground. 

From there, it was “hurry up and wait” as I calculated where the sun would set so I could make a “balanced” composition (“balance” meaning that the sun would be anywhere but dead center of my image).

As it turned out, the sun set perfectly over the spot I’d composed, the above image best capturing the moment. The “white balance” on my old Nikon D3s gave the sky (as it so often did in overcast conditions) a slightly more purplish bias than the bluish-gray I was seeing. I decided to keep that happy accident in the finished product.

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So after going 0-for-Craggy all these years, I finally found what I was looking for. I came away from this session with a lovely, compelling image or two of spring blooms and dazzling sunset skies from my favorite place on Earth.

Photographs that were more than worthy of my portfolio.

Two Seasons in One Day

In late October 2012, Hurricane Sandy (labeled a “superstorm,” and quite rightly) devastated parts of the eastern seaboard, particularly New Jersey and New York. Needless to say, the reports of lives and property lost coming through the wire was heartbreaking and horrifying.

The “wraparound” moisture on the west end of Sandy became a very early winter storm, mainly impacting West Virginia and Kentucky. But it also dipped as far south as northeast Georgia, frosting the highest peaks with an early snow. While the valley areas got mostly rain, the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park also received snowfall.

When I first heard of the wintry news surrounding the superstorm, I was visiting with a friend (coincidentally named Sandy) at her home in Canton, Georgia. Gambling that I’d find some places in the Smokies with both snow and some remaining fall foliage as well, I decided to make a road trip.

So it was off from Sandy’s house, en route to Maggie Valley, for an overnight stay, in hopes I would find something worthwhile. And with a light coating of snow on the ground the next morning, I knew my chances would be good. 

I had to take the long way around to get to the Smokies. My usual path, the steep and winding U.S. 19 from Maggie Valley, was still a bit too icy and dodgy to navigate in the morning hours. I took U.S. 441/74 instead into Cherokee, entering the National Park around 10 a.m., temperatures in the mid-30s as I drove on Newfound Gap Road. 

Not surprisingly, Newfound Gap Road was barricaded at Smokemont campground; so I parked nearby and walked up the barricaded road to explore. But the spooky sound of tree branches snapping and falling all around me under the weight of the wet, heavy snow forced me back to Smokemont. Once there, I sought out Bradley Fork, which connects to the Oconaluftee River only a few hundred yards from where this image was taken. I had to stand in some COLD water to get the shot shown below, the trees along the river still in full, colorful leaf, while the distant branches were frosted with snow. It was exactly the kind of scene I’d envisioned when I left Sandy’s house the day before… 

First Snow of the Year

After a typically joyous Christmas with my family on the Gulf Coast, I rang in New Year’s 2017 at my home with a buoyed spirit and a desire for some winter exploration. I didn’t have to wait long, either. I awoke Saturday, January 6, to a nice coating of four to seven inches of snow. And in anticipation of the coming weather I parked my trusty ol’ Honda Civic at the bottom of Summit Drive for easier access to Soco Road (the main road in Maggie Valley) rather than in my driveway, which was located a quarter mile up Summit, and 500 feet in elevation above the town. 

When I awoke Saturday morning, the only vehicles out on Soco Road were the ones that could actually navigate it. The monster four-wheel drive “Here, hold my beer!” types, and not the piddly two-wheel drive small cars like my old Civic that was buried beneath the snow. 

Since I couldn’t drive, I walked. And as the sun began breaking through the clouds as the last snowflakes fell, it added drama and needed light to the wintry wonderland I found myself in. I was struck when I approached my favorite barn in its winter guise, shown above. I’ve shot this barn with blooms in the spring, with fall foliage, plus with both fall foliage and snow at the same time (Mother Nature was a tad confused that day). But this was the first truly pure snowfall image of that barn I’ve captured, at least one worthy of my portfolio.

Seasons: A Collection of Photographs and Stories, self-published by Robert Stephens, was released in February 2020, with printing assistance and technical consulting by Jerry Greer of Mountain Trail Press. Information and purchase options are at solitarytravelerphotography.com/shop.

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