CADES COVE COLOR

Canon EOS REBEL XS, Promaster 19-35 lens @ 19 mm, ISO 400, f/20, 2 sec., 3 Image Panorama

  My friend Tim Owens and I took out on a jaunt into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Sunday morning with the intention of hiking to Spruce Flats Falls by the Tremont Institute.  We arrived at the trail head for the falls at 6:15am and it was still 15-20 minutes before daylight and we didn't want to take on the rough terrain of the trail in the dark so Tim suggested on going over to Cades Cove and catching the sunrise.
  What a great idea. We drove and parked right next to the start of the Cades Cove Loop and started walking down the road to get some kind of angle.  We ended up crawling through a fence out into this pasture which I really liked because of there were several horses grazing in it and there was a barn just in front of the trees below the mountains which I liked having in the shot.
  The loop road was lined with trees and they created a nice lead in from the left to the pink and blue colors of the sunrise. This is the first time I have photographed Cades Cove and would love to come back and find more to shoot there.
  The light only lasted for about 15 minutes and then it was gone. We then made our way back to the institute and trudged along the trail to Spruce Flats Falls which I will share images of in another post.