DREAMLAND

ISO 800, f/14, 2 seconds, 19mm

  Gosh what a great morning up at Spruce Flats Falls in Tremont of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Even though the rain caused our excursion to be cut short, we still got a good 2 hours of shooting at probably my favorite waterfall in the Smokies.
  Tim Owens, Matt Millsaps, and I made the 2 mile hike zig-zagging up and down the mountain side. This is a fairly easy trail with the exception of the rocky outcroppings and tree roots that you have to climb over in some spots. It tended to be really hard on my old ankles and knees. It is well worth the effort when you arrive at this majestic 20-30 foot waterfall.
  This particular shot is very similar to one I took at the end of last summer here and processed as a black & white.  There was a bunch more water in the stream than before and I understand exposure and heck of lot better so I wasn't sweating taking a similar composition.  As a matter of fact, last year's shot had a great deal of blue tint in it from over doing the processing and being slightly overexposed. That was the reason I performed the black & white conversion.
  Something else I did different with this shot was apply the Dreamland effect from OnOne Software's Perfect Effect 3 Free. I only used it at 50% opacity in Photoshop Elements before merging the layers so it wouldn't be completely soft-focused but would still have a soft, dreamy look to it.
  Lot's more images to share from this morning. I'll give you a hint, the Rhododendron were in bloom. WOO-HOO!