Hanging Rock State Park

Hanging Rock

Every year, my family picks a spot to spend Thanksgiving and we all come together to eat and enjoy a beautiful and/or fantastic location. This year we ventured to Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina.

Now, I’ve fashioned myself as a people photographer over the past couple of years, but it’s fun every once in a while to slow down and shoot some scenery.

Lower Cascades Falls

Waking up at 5:30AM to catch the sunrise is not something I usually have to do, but if you want to get a shot like this, you’re going to have to hike up a mountain in the dark:

Hanging Rock

I still managed to take some shots of my family as well. Here’s my wife with her brothers and sister under a waterfall:

Hidden Falls

And here’s my kids at another waterfall. The park has 5 different waterfalls you can hike to.

Window Falls

There’s a reason why this waterfall is called “Window Falls”, as illustrated in the following shot:

Window Falls

Taking portraits with a very slow shutter speed is quite the challenge. It felt akin to old school portraiture where the subject had to hold perfectly still to get the proper exposure. Here, we’re trying to get the falls to look smooth while keeping ourselves sharp. This is a self-portrait with my son:

Upper Cascades Falls

Speaking of self-portraits, here’s one I made while we played with light painting at night:

And here’s a self-portrait I made up on the Hanging Rock:

I leave you with one last shot from underneath the rock. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Hanging Rock

You can check out all of my vacation photos on this set on Flickr.