That Georgia Biologist

Note: As any reader of this blog can tell, I don't think this will be a regular thing for me...but whenever I have something to post about, I certainly will! This month I had the privilege of visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park with my family. It was lots of fun, even though there were a few more people there than usual (read: typical summertime in the most visited national park in America with 11+ million visitors!!). In this article I will begin sharing some of my Cades Cove photos. Enjoy! :) The usual trail that we take to the John Oliver cabin was closed, so we took this one instead for the first time. Loved all the pretty green and tress! And my family made for great subjects walking down the trail...  Sometimes it's those little things that capture your attention. Before walking down the trail at all, I saw the water droplets on this leaf. Loved it! Having a DSLR now is really cool because I love all the new creative tools and settings now at my

What's happening: for the past few months, I've been sharing photos of an early morning photography trip to Civil War-era Chickamauga Battlefield. The journey continues... The next stop on our drive was the Wilder Tower, a monument to the bravery of Federal Col. John Wilder as he (though in vain) tried with his men to defend this portion of the battlefield. In the summer the tower is open to climbing and the view is quite amazing! But on this winter trip, my friend and I just enjoyed viewing it from the ground. I like the below two pictures - just alternate framing makes the tower look big or small! When I got closer to the actual tower base, I once again enjoyed playing around with angles and sunbursts... The last stop on the driving tour was the Snodgrass cabin and field - the Snodgrass cabin was a field hospital of sorts during the last day of the battle, where the fiercest part of the fighting took place. Every time I visit this part of Chickamau

What's happening: last month I started sharing photos of a winter morning visit to Chickamauga Battlefield. In the last article I shared photos from just the first auto tour route stop. Now my best friend and I have driven onto stop two, three, and four... One thing that I really liked about going on this trip with my best friend was that he would encourage me to poke around in some parts of the park that were a little off-the-beaten-path, but still really cool. Sometimes the neatest things can be found by doing that! For example, as you'll see in the below photo, the sun had just popped over the horizon. I loved how I was able to capture this sunburst on the monument, which was a little ways off the road. Definitely a place I wouldn't have visited without some encouragement! Unfortunately I did not have my telephoto lens on, but I still enjoyed trying for shots of this deer. He was a little scared of us humans! As a diversion, I enjoyed snapping these

Over Christmas break I had the chance to drive down to Chickamauga Battlefield with my best friend to do some early morning photography. As previously mentioned in my last post, I've been there a couple times below - even once to film - but have always wanted to return again to try and get those beautiful light-filled photos the park is always posting on Instagram and Facebook! For those of you who don't know, Chickamauga Battlefield is the largest portion of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park - our nation's oldest such park, 'twas founded in 1890. Here are some of my photos! We reached the park right at sunrise - this was the view that greeted us! I should say that one reason I really like the photo at the top of this article is because artistically it is symmetrically balanced. You have the cannon right there in the middle - and to add interest, you have the Florida monument there in the background. I really like how this one turned out. I a