Today was my first day of shooting with the Tony Sweet workshop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There were ten of us in the workshop along with instructors Tony and Susan Milestone.  It was a great start to the next four days of photography in this outstanding location. The early morning rays of light filter through the fog and trees in the scene above within the Cades Cove area of the park.

We arrived early at the Cades Cove entrance in order to get in line waiting for the gate to open so that we could get set-up before the crowds arrived to take this classic Smokies image of Sparks Lane.

Before the sun was able to burn off the morning fog, we stopped along the road to photograph this lone tree, a favorite subject of many photographers here.  My composition below took advantage of a cloud stream passing by that seemed to connect directly to the tree.

Later in the day, we headed to the Greenbrier area of the park to work on some images of mountain streams.  The lighting conditions were good for catching the reflection of color on the water.

I alternated between working on wide angle shots of the water and more narrow scenes to concentrate on the flow of the water over the rocks that many people refer to as ‘moon rocks’.

The workshop concentrated on compositional themes and components.  Below is an image looking downstream as the flow of water makes a graceful S-curve pattern.  This was a great first day of the workshop…. looking forward to the next three days.