Pounding Mill at Sunrise
Oi, Vei! My main photo drive crashed on Friday… I’m sending out out this week to recover the data. How could this happen to a 9-month-old hard drive? Argh!
Well lemons can become lemonade… Instead of tossing, turning and being grumpy on Saturday, I got up super-early (for me, 4:30 is crazy early), and drove up the Blue Ridge parkway to Pounding Mill… just west of Mt. Pisgah and the Pisgah Inn. Clouds on the horizon made for an extra-colorful sunrise, and you can even see clouds in the valley. I’ve added a 10 picture catalog to the menu.
So, minor philosophical stuff here: I am finding that going out to nature, especially the mountains, is a real healing thing for me. As a kid, I spent summers in the Laurel Mountains, so it’s a bit “regressive” for me… very comforting. As a photographer, what a nice subject! The only downside is that after having gotten up that early, I napped throughout the day, so nighttime/start pictures weren’t happening. Still, it was a great break.
I now have a full cloud backup…which I SHOULD have been doing all along. Once the drive situation settles down, I will get back to making videos… I have several ideas, and needed to re-assess my priorities before starting that as a regular thing. I should be regular on YouTube by November, if not a little sooner. (Like to my YouTube channel is on the left).
Things you MUST have for this kind of work:
- Coffee
- Sturdy Tripod
- Coffee
- Remote trigger, or knowledge of setting up a 2 or more second delay
- Coffee
- Camera – seriously… any camera… even a phone, if you have a steady mount for it
- Wide lens
Things that make this kind of work easier:
- Coffee
- Ballhead tripod head, for more control when your tripod is on a slope
- Thermos for coffee
- Circular polarizer to help control the sky (I forgot this till near the end)
- Water to cleanse the palate – between coffees
- Patience, or liking to watch nature between shots
I shot from f/16 to f/22… would have shot smaller, but that’s as small as my 10-20 sigma lens will go. I got basic settings from Aperture Priority (Av), then switched to manual so I could work the settings from there as I saw fit. ISO 100 only, for daylight (lower if you have a camera capable of it). Most of the exposures were 2-18 seconds, then under 2 seconds once the sun was fully up.
I noticed a couple good potential other shots coming back, but was too tired to stop and try them… expect some weird tunnel pictures in another week or so. I found 2 tunnels that face east-enough to maybe get sunrise through.
Also, for out-of-state folks, leaf peeping season is almost here. I noticed a FEW trees changing with the hurricane and rain last week, so others will follow. I’ll be putting up some hurricane related stuff, if they can recover it from my E drive.
Given what just happened, I can’t recommend STRONGLY ENOUGH:
- Cloud backups can be gotten for 50-100 dollars a year
- WD makes a great portable drive (Passport Pro…4Tb with built-in SD reader). I was using it for travel, but given my issue here, I’m going to use it as a mid-stage part of my workflow from now on.
- The drive crashed WHILE downloading (and clearing) my SD card… I was fortunate that those were travel photos, so they are already on the WD
- Had that been a paid job, I would have lost the day… that’s why I’m suggesting card->passport, THEN card->PC and wipe. Slower, but safer.
Once things settle down, I’ll probably put up a video or two about what I’ve learned, and how my workflow is changing to be more professional.