Tremont
Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.
Autumn in the high country in Great Smoky Mountain NP was eliminated early by a mid October Nor'Easter a couple of years ago, leaving only the color down in the valleys to the color hunters. One of the moods you want in autumn is wet, but there are caveats. Best is overnight with a wet morning, and if there's fog--that's like sex. If the sun is burning it off, you've died & gone to heaven. But I digress. This day it just rained. Kind of hard. But after cruising some favorite spots, it finally started raining in another caveat range, this one being the state of it can rain slightly, as long as it produces a little haze/mist on the water or in the forest, and it's not a losing battle with drops on the lens. By the time I reached my favorite spot on the Middle Prong of the Little River, in the Tremont section, it had stopped, and the late afternoon sun was above the rising mists which, not totally burned off, were like a giant softbox on the landscape. River: running pretty good. I backed the polarizer off some, and liked the tone of the water as it hits the flat before the fall. Combine the scene with the stillness of the air and the white noise of the river, and you have one of the places I go to as a last thought before sleep. Why black & white after all the color chasing? All the detail and texture seemed a good candidate for grey tones. Besides, don't they say we dream in black & white?
