A few weeks ago my family went to the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina for a weekend getaway in a tiny little cabin on the side of a river in a town called Bat Cave. We did some hiking, checked out waterfalls such as the one above at Pearson’s Falls, spent a day at the Biltmore Estate, visited Chimney Rock (pictured below), and of course shopped at all the touristy shops.

I also took some time to try and teach the kids a little bit about photography. The kids love when I let them shoot with my D40! This shot below is of my son on the side of Hooker Falls sporting the greatest little DSLR ever made.

I used this shot below as a lesson on using long exposures to shoot running water. I showed them that if you set the aperture to a really small setting (which means larger f number), then you are able to set a really long exposure time which gives the running water a glassy and smooth effect. This was shot at f/22 for 1/2 a second. I used the guard rail on the edge of the trail to brace the camera since we were sans tripod on the hike.

I like hiking in the mountains, everything just seems so photogenic. Maybe it’s the change of scenery from living near the coast, or maybe it’s the way things are designed to compliment the environment such as these steps on a mountain trail.

There are times when we’re driving through the hills and I scream “pull over now!” so I can capture scenes such as this:

I’m sure when people come to the beach, the plantations, the city, or swamps of the low country, they get the same kind of excitement. Physically taking yourself out of your comfort zone can be a very inspiring act. It’s quite true that the spark of inspiration is easily lit by doing something different. The struggle is finding the new inspiration in your own backyard!

This is my family on the last day of our adventure – what a rag-tag bunch we were after a few days in the back woods! Gotta love that ML L3 Remote in my right hand – I was over 50 feet away from the camera outdoors, and it worked like a champ.