Plaasabilities

"Come" West Prong Little Pigeon River, Sugarlands.  Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved On a sunny winter afternoon, I wandered where a path followed The river, cold and clear, As it descended from sugared mountains Towards the tourist-trap filled town. Some come seeking 'shine and souvenirs in crowded shops and clogged streets. I come seeking solace and solitude among the towering trees and water crashing over rounded rocks. Thirsty pilgrims journeying To the promised land. While promises of dubious worth are fast fleeting, The river remains steadfast -- Flowing through flood or snow Or drought of fall. Eternal water for the soul. And I come. I have been looking though my photos files for the year and selecting those that speak to me most for a year-in-review feature on my Facebook page. The problem is I'm finding more unedited images that i now have the skills to refine so I...

"Frost Away" The fog was just beginning to lift near the Walker Camp Prong Crossing on Newfound Gap Road. Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Sundays are always very hectic for me in late fall. It's what happens when you are a church musician who is given the added responsibility of organizing programs for large regional meetings and Christmas. Most of us love Christmas music but making those musical events happen is a huge challenge. Given the changes in my life the last few months I haven't been as effective in meeting those challenges as I would like. I see everything that either needs to be done or that I haven't done well and feel, um, discouraged. I keep giving myself the guilty "should" lecture, listing everything I should have done but haven't. Add Sunday night fatigue to the mix and the results aren't good. Tonight, just as I was about to cave and have a very nice, personal pity party I...

"Dome's Eye View" Rime ice clings to trees on the slopes of Mt. Collins, Sugarland Mountain, and Mt. Le Conte as inversion clouds cover the valleys north and west of Clingmans Dome. Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved “Sometimes all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a totally new light.”  Dan Brown ,  The Lost Symbol I learned a great deal about weather during the years I lived in Salt Lake City. In particular, I learned about temperature inversions -- a situation when atmospheric conditions keep clouds (and smog and pollution and germs) trapped in the valley between mountain ranges and clear, blue skies aloft. It's the one time when it's colder down in the valley than it is at the top of the mountain. After listening to local weather reports, I knew yesterday would be a perfect set-up for an inversion and blue skies at Clingmans Dome.  Most days the valley fog rises up, s...

"Benched" Colorful maple tree in front of the Sugarlands Visitors Center Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Trees BY   JOYCE KILMER I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. I was blessed with the opportunity to escape to the Smokies today. I had a meeting in Pigeon Forge at 2 PM so it made perfect sense to take a leisurely drive along the Little River on my way. I was impressed with the amount of colorful leaves that still remain, mostly on the hillsides, but also some along the river. The sky was a brilliant blue and the trees were varying hu...

Middlin' Middle Prong Little River, Tremont Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost, 1923 As a nature lover and photographer I eagerly await the first hints of buds emerging from the trees in early spring. I adore the bright, cheery green trees in the Smokies in April. That green evolves to a deep, velvety hue as summer progresses then, before you know it, hints of gold show up in early September. It's just a tease, of course, as the richest red and golds won't show up until late October. It's futile to wish those rich hues would remain. Fall always has it's way as wind, rain, and snow turn the golds to brown and down, down, down they come. Gone. The gold is gone. The leaves ar...

Winter woods aren't desolate As they would seem to be, For beauty dwells at every turn For searching eyes to see. The black of trees is ermine trimmed; Each bush is wearing lace And Nature's spread with lavish hand White velvet every place. Where winter sunrays lightly touch The ice-encrusted stream, Upon its crystal countenance A thousand diamonds gleam. No, winter woods aren't desolate-- There's beauty enough to spare; And those in search of loveliness Will surely find it there.    Virginia Blanck Moore   The Best of Ideals ©1978

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...

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) American Quaker, Poet, and Abolitionist As I was getting ready for church this morning I was reflecting on this past year and how quickly the months have flown by. It's been a remarkable year, though things haven't always gone the way I thought they might. That's the challenge of placing expectations or time frames on things one can't control -- when things are different you have to learn to adjust. I was raised to have goals in life - things to work toward and accomplish. At an earlier time in my life I fared pretty well at achieving many of those goals. When my health deteriorated and I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted, it was easy to look back with longing for that which I felt I had lost. Reflecting back from time to time is good, but looking back with longing limited my ability to look...

Not all those who wander are lost.  J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973); Writer, Poet, Philologist, University Professor I inherited my wanderlust tendencies from my father. I consider it to be one of the greatest attributes he has given me. I am rarely content to be stuck indoors -- be it work, school, or at home. After a while I have to get out and get into nature. Living in East Tennessee, that often means heading to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or one of many state or local parks. But really, any road or path that piques my curiosity will do as long as I am exploring. Daddy used to call it "getting lost."  He'd pile all us kids into our big Plymouth station wagon and say, "Let's go get lost." Translated, this means let's go to an area that we sort of know, drive down roads we've never been on before, and see what we can discover. We rarely ever got truly lost, but we saw things we might have missed had we opted to not go down the roa...

Caney Fork Sunset, Blue Ridge Parkway October 2012 Copyright 2012 Kristina Plaas A few weeks ago I expressed my feelings about watching a beautiful sunrise, but I feel the same way about a gorgeous sunset. I was reminded of this while driving home from Kingsport on Saturday afternoon. As I rolled down I-81 the sun descended from the clear blue sky above into the low-level clouds and smoky haze (from wildfires) near the horizon. It was a cold, low humidity day making conditions perfect for a colorful sunset -- and colorful it was! My only regret was that I was not in a position to get off the interstate and snap some photos of the glorious scene. A stunning sunset always reminds me of the blessing of adversity in life. Watching a sunset when the sky is clear is nice, but not especially beautiful. The right combination of clouds and sky are required for a spectacular sunset, one filled with a rainbow of yellows, oranges, reds, and purples. Similarly, it is the challenging times ...

Last night I attended the first University of Tennessee Men's Basketball game of the 2012-13 season at Thompson-Boling Arena. I love the experience of going to basketball games: Wearing orange and white, singing "Rocky Top", smiling at the antics of our mascot Smokey, moaning at bad calls from the officials, cheering loudly when local star Skylar McBee hits another signature McThree point shot, laughing at the awkward moments captured by the KissCam during the under-8 timeout during the 1st half. Yes, I love it all. Perhaps the thing I love most about going to the basketball games is arriving at the arena, situated adjacent to Neyland Stadium on the banks of the Tennessee River. From the street level on Philip Fulmer Way one has to walk up a switchbacking ramp to the plaza level and the entrance to TBA. From this vantage point I can follow the river all the way to downtown. At night the lights on along the waterfront reflect in the river and the heart of Knoxville seems...