Plaasabilities

I am blessed to live in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains and work as a National Park Volunteer at Clingmans Dome. I spend as much time as I can in the Smokies enjoying my love for nature and photography. I love the time I spend in the park and the opportunity I have to interact with park visitors. One thing I have learned as a volunteer is to watch out for visitors who might be in difficulty. It is not uncommon to find distressed visitors at Clingmans Dome, due in large part to the effects of high altitude. Looking for someone who might be having an issue has become almost second nature to me. It was a chilly and rainy day at the Dome yesterday, though it was not too terribly cold. We were in the clouds all day so we didn't have nearly the volume of visitors we might have on a clear day. Frankly, there wasn't enough activity to require the service of three volunteers and two GSMA employees. I felt prompted to go ahead and leave before the scheduled end of my shift a...

Sunny Sunrise © 2013 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Show-Off © 2013 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved One of the things I have learned on my journey as a photographer is the importance of being in the right place at the right time to capture the best possible image. In nature photography that timing has everything to do with light. The best light happens in the hour surrounding sunrise in the morning and again in the evening at sunset. My inner body clock is set to be a night-owl, so sunrise photography is a real challenge. I have to get out of bed and out of the house ridiculously early in the morning, a time I now refer to simply as "0 Dark Thirty." The amazing thing is I have come to love the pre-dawn light so much that I happily roll out just to experience it. Trust me, this is revolutionary! My most recent pre-dawn roll out led me to Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, a beautiful location in the rolling farmland along the French Broad River east of Knoxvi...