Date Taken: 10/17/2016
Location: Standing at the Beacon Heights Overlook parking lot, Milepost 305.2 on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone and Blowing Rock, North Carolina and Grandfather Mountain.

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Date Taken: 10/02/2016
Location: Beacon Heights, a 1/4-mile hike to a summit, Milepost 305.2 on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Camera: Canon 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 16-35mm F/2.8L Mark II
Focal Length: 19mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/8 second
Aperture: f/13
Filters: Lee Circular Polarizer, Lee Grad ND
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: This was my first visit and hike up to Beacon Heights. I’d just finished shooting sunrise and my buddy, Tommy White, suggested we check out the back side of Beacon so I would know what to expect there next time I visited. Having not found much color at all over the weekend we were surprised to see this stand of trees in near peak color and decided to grab some shots!

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Date Taken: 10/02/2016
Location: Beacon Heights Overlook, Milepost 305.2, off the Tanawha Trail facing Table Rock.

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Date Taken: 02/22/2015
Location: Beacon Heights, Milepost 305
A winter image taken from Beacon Heights during the last storm. We arrived to virgin powder on the rock. We watched as the clouds and snow swirled around. The thick fog rolling over Grandfather Mountain dissipated as it continued on down the valley, leaving an opening for the sun’s golden light show.

Camera: D810
Lens: Nikkor 17-35mm, f2.8
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 125
Shutter: 1/200 second
Aperture: f16
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: The flare happened so fast that I was only able to secure 2 shots of the golden light before it was gone. When It happened, I was standing pretty far back as to not track up the snow, keeping the horizon line as close to the lower third line in the composition. This was later cropped to include the rock and the sun itself on third lines also.
1/200 shutter speed was used to stop as much of the cloud movement as possible. I did not want to go up on the ISO, if possible. I would normally capture a shot like this with the aperture around f8 or f11 and focus stack, but since it happened so fast, the first shot I took was f16 to make sure I had something usable. I’m glad I did. My focus point was the tree under the sun giving me the correct hyper-focal distance to ensure the entire shot was in good focus.

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Date Taken: 01/07/2014
Location: Beacon Heights MP 305
A starry night over the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Camera: Canon 6D
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L
Focal Length: 24mm
ISO: 1600
Shutter: 20 seconds
Aperture: f/4
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I used the live view to find a star and focus. I then recomposed. I knew I needed around 20 second exposure to prevent star trails. From there, I adjusted my ISO until the image was as bright as I needed it to be.

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Location: Blue Ridge Parkway
“Beacon Heights View” Early morning in the fall from the Blue Ridge Parkway, overlooking the Piedmont and Beacon Heights.

Camera: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Focal Length: 32mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/250
Aperture: f/6.3
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: This was taken at or near MP 302 looking northeast, with the sun to my right. The sun was still low enough that the sky was very blue.

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Date Taken: 01/29/2014
Location: Beacon Heights
The golden glow of morning light washes over the famous “Beacon” at Beacon Heights. Sub-Zero temperatures of recent weeks kept the snow a drift on top of the rocky outcropping. High winds did their part as well in keeping visitors footprints hidden and creating an interesting texture in the foreground. The winter sun position gave way to an interesting composition and not one usually seen from this location.

Camera: Nikon D800
Lens: 17-35mm
Focal Length: 20mm
ISO: 160
Shutter: 160 sec.
Aperture: f11
Filters: 2 stop soft ND reverse grad filter. Singh Ray
Exposure: Aperture Priority
How I Got This Shot: Beacon Heights is well known rock outcropping near Grandfather Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost #305. A short hike will junction with the Mountains to Sea Trail for a short ways and then veer off to the left to the rock outcroppings.

This shot was taken at sunrise on a sub-zero morning. Winds about 20mph sustained. You can’t really tell from this shot, but blowing snow and “snownados” were abundant this morning.

I set my tripod about a foot off the ground because I wanted to show the detail in the snowy foreground and create lead in lines to my main subject. The main image was taken at F11. I did take an extra exposure at f20 to make sure I had it all in good focus and for a little starring in the sun. A very small amount of color correction and retouching was done in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop.

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Date Taken: 01/03/2014
Location: Beacon Heights MP 305
It was a bitter 8F degrees with gusty winds when I passed these icicles. They were so beautiful I had to stop!

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