Porter’s Creek Trail| Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Here are a few more images from another great trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Porter’s Creek might be my favorite trail for wildflowers and that’s because of one small little flower and that’s the White Fringed Phacelia, or should I say millions of them !!

Walking this trail starts out with a nice gentle trail that has many of the different flowers that grace the park, but after traveling up the trail for a mile you cross over a very entertaining log bridge and then walk into a different world. All across the floor of the gorge and up the side of the mountain are millions upon millions of these little flowers, it actually looks like you had just experienced a snow fall.

It seems like it is right out of the Lord of the Rings or some other fantasy movie, it is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. The actual bloom is about the size of a nickel which isn’t the largest broom out there, but when you have several million growing together it makes for an incredible sight to witness.

If you ever get a chance to travel to the park in the spring this another one of those great hikes you will be glad you took. So here are a few shots from the hike, I included a macro version of one the plants and then some of the actual trail itself, thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

Wildflowers of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I thought it might be time to move on from the wildflowers we have here in Madison Indiana and venture on to my favorite spot to photograph and that’s the The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee. If I could only have one place to photograph at for the rest of my life it would be here, the diversity of flora and fauna and not to mention the incredible landscape opportunities make the GSMNP a photographers dream.

This past April we made a trip down to hike and work all the great spots for wildflower images. Even though wildflowers cover nearly the entire park there are spots where if you make the trip you have to visit and these include Cove Hardwood Nature Trail, White-oak Sinks, Chimney’s Top, Porters Creek and Cucumber Gap. These are all fantastic trails to view and photograph wildflowers and they are also relatively easy hikes as well !!

I won’t share many images from each trail but I thought I might just share a few today and post more later. First we have some shots from Cove Hardwood Nature trail. I hope you enjoy the images and if you ever travel to the Park in the spring these trails are a must see on your visit !!

Yellow Trillium

Large Flowering Trillium

Sweet White Trillium

Stream Photography

Here are a couple shots from a recent trip to the Smoky National Park that weren’t wildflowers if you can believe that, really I do shoot things other than wildflowers, you got to shoot a variety of things to keep your photography from getting too stale lol !!

I shot both of these steam images in the Tremont area of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park which is one of my favorite areas to work. I started with a large are a of the stream showing the environment around it and the flow of the water. Then in my next image I captured just a small area of the stream and converted it to black and white to show it in it’s abstract form.

Even though I spent most of that day working around 100 feet of that stream I was able to capture many differing variations of the flow of the water and mood of the scene as well. Hope you enjoy the images and thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

Wildflowers of the Smoky Mountains

Here are a few more images from a recent trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, I love traveling to this special place not only for the wildflowers but for the vast variety of subjects you can photograph at this special place. Landscapes, macros, wildlife and many other opportunities await the photographer traveling thru the Southern Appalachian Mountains, you can never run out of subjects or seasons in this photographers paradise.

So here are a couple more examples of the many wildflowers that grow in the Smoky Mountains, the first is the Dwarf Crested Iris and the other two being Wild Columbine.

If you get an opportunity try traveling to the Smokies and make sure you get out and hike and view and photograph the beautiful subjects that call this special place home. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

Dwarf Crested Iris

Wild Columbine

Smoky Mountain Trillium

Here are some more recent images I was able to capture on trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These shots are all 0f Trillium which seemed to have had a banner year in the Park, I have never seen so many in bloom as I did this year.

There are many varieties of Trillium that grow in the park but I was only able to capture a few of the species on this recent trip, the two kinds of Trillium here are the Large flowering and Catesby’s Trillium.

I photographed the Large Flowering Trillium on the Cove Hardwood Nature Trail and the Catesby’s Trillium was photographed on the trail going into White Oak Sinks. White Oak Sinks is another great trail for viewing and photographing wildflowers in the park.

It was a great trip and I am happy to be able to share some of my experiences and photography with you, thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

Large Flowering Trillium