This post is part of a series from Rick Braveheart. our wonderful resident photographer. Please see more of his work here.

“Our job is to record, each in their own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.” – Edward Abbey (environmental advocate, 1927-1989)

I began this morning with a hike that eventually took me 500’ above the cabin. The sun which has just crested the horizon is lighting the landscape like a bright floodlight. This area is known today as Whisper Mountain–a community committed to land preservation and living in balance with nature. From here I’m surrounded by two nearby mountains brilliantly painted in the final colors of Fall; Yellow Mountain to the left, and Doggett Mountain to the right. The valley between them is called Davidson Gap, with “Big Sandy Mush” at one end and “Little Sandy Mush” at the other.

Only a dozen miles away lie the oldest mountains in North America. This morning as I looked to the east I watched the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains and saw towering above them the impressive, Mt. Mitchell. At 6,684′ it is the tallest peak in the Appalachian Mountains and the tallest mountain in the Eastern USA. Off to my west are the Great Smoky Mountains, sometimes referred to simply as the Smokies, which is also home to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

The extensive forests within the Great Smoky Mountains, along with its neighboring Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests, almost completely surround this area of Western North Carolina with vibrant, dense tree and plant vegetation.

The “blue” (in Blue Ridge Mountains) and “Smoky” (in Smoky Mountains) come from the natural haze or fog produced by the water vapor that’s given off by the trees and plants of the surrounding forests. This haze can also appear at times as plumes of smoke or a cloud forming within a valley. One tree alone can produce hundreds of gallons of water vapor in a single day. The blue color in the haze is caused by specific hydrocarbons that are trapped in the vapor which reflect blue light into the atmosphere. While I’ve most commonly seen this haze in the morning or after a rainfall, this time I’ve year I’ve also watched it settle over an area for an entire day.

As a mountainous region, this area is also known for rapidly changing weather. While it may sound odd, I’m thrilled at the prospect of a month photographing in potentially difficult atmospheric and weather conditions. I find that many atmospheric conditions like fog, haze, lightning, rain, snow (which often appears here in early in December), and even rapidly moving clouds can add much to an image. And, those conditions can help visually convey a strong sense of the place and what was happening when the image was made. While each atmospheric condition posses a specific technical challenge to the photographer, my plan is to try several new non-traditional techniques for including them in an image.

Each day over the past week I’ve had the chance to watch a colorful haze build in the valley just below my cabin. A dip in the temperature and day-long rainfall also produced a dense fog that blanketed the mountains and reduced reducing the visibility to just a few dozen feet. The images on this page which were taken this week show how these intense weather conditions helped to convey the dream-like qualities of the experience and also saturate the fall colors which might otherwise appear muddy or washed out.

INTERESTING FACT
Over the years I’ve found that different regional terms are used to describe a ridge between two mountains. In the Appalachians it’s called a gap, in the Western states it’s a pass, in Idaho it’s called a saddle and in New England, it’s termed a notch.

Tips For Photographing In Fog
Taking photos in fog (or even dense smoke) isn’t easy because these conditions tend to trick a camera’s exposure meter. The water vapor in the fog gathers and reflects the surrounding light and acts like thousands of mirrors which cause the camera to think things are brighter than they actually are. To compensate for this with DSLR cameras, I find that using an exposure compensation setting of +1 to +2 stops usually corrects the problem. Or, if you use a camera that has no exposure adjustment setting, such as a point-and-shoot camera, aim it toward the darkest subject within the foggy area, hold the shutter button down half-way (to lock in the exposure) then, while still holding down the button, re-compose the photo and press the shutter fully down.