My friend David and I raced up to the Pounding Mill overlook on the Parkway Sunday to hopefully catch a sunrise... and after spending almost the whole day on Saturday in the rain, it was SO nice to see the sun. We were joined by quite a few others at the overlook to say the least. I believe Dave Allen was there leading a workshop, and I met Mark Van Dyke as well. I'm not sure I came away with anything unique or great, but it was a nice morning nonetheless. After sunrise I captured this shot of the fog filling the valley, with the nice fall colors peaking there way through.

Dry Falls was the 2nd stop during my recent waterfall chasing trip. I'd never been there before and wow, was the flow ever impressive. I felt pretty lucky to catch it in close to peak autumn color as well. There's certainly nothing new about this composition, but I just had to grab one of my own :) I tried something from behind, but it's hard to beat this view...

An image from my morning at Avalon Pier in Kill Devil Hills back in July. The sky just didn't really cooperate that morning, so I tried to make the best of it...and definitely want to try to make it back next year.

The first bit of warm weather this week had me thinking back to some frigid moments on top of Round Bald back in January. Crazy to experience those 30-40mph winds and whiteout conditions up there...a first for me. Loved every minute of it :) Have a great weekend!

Another one from my trip back in March to the Outer Banks along the North Carolina coast. This old pier has seen better days and it's in even worse shape now after this year's storms. The National Park Service is scheduled to start tearing it down later this month or in December as it has become too much of a hazard to beachgoers and swimmers. I wish I could have made it down for another trip, but...things just didn't align. Have a great weekend everyone and big thank you for the reception on the last image!

Hopefully everyone can let me continue my indulgence of Roan Mountain from last month... This one was taken from Jane Bald after most everyone had cleared out. I'd wanted to hop up on these rocks earlier but really I think it worked out better for after sunset, at least I'm telling myself that. Shooting 16mm from here was only capturing the right two-thirds of the image....so I took a 2nd shot and was able to merge them into this mostly square composition. Again, no clouds for this evening, but gosh, I couldn't complain with the color palette I was working with... I hope everyone's week is off to a great start...but I could do without this scorching heat...no more high 90s please.

Another one from my morning at Pounding Mill Overlook on the Parkway....just before sunrise. Looking Glass Rock and the surrounding mountains were peaking through the layers of fog in the valley below.

The time is approaching soon...the pilgrimage to Roan Mountain every June by photographers from all over. This one's from my trip last year. Camping on the backside of Jane Bald for 1 night after Grassy ended up being a pretty good idea (Thx to Tommy White ;-) ) I had to grab the 70-200 when I noticed all the different layers being lit up by the morning sun. I'm "planning" to head up there this year on Friday, the 9th if anyone is around...and stay through Sunday morning. The cool weather has me worried I'm gonna be a bit early again this year for the bloom on Grassy...

One from my recent trip... I had to try my luck at Big Creek again for some good fall color and decent water flow. I decided to camp at Big Creek for one night before heading up on the Parkway the next day...and I'm glad I did. The color was...pretty darn good, with the yellows really popping and the hours of rain the night before got the water levels up...enough. Hope everyone's have a great week!

Crisp, quiet, calm, cool....words that describe a few moments along Big Creek from my trip last fall to the Great Smoky Mountains. It was getting close to the end of the day, the light was slowly fading and not even a slight breeze, so I went with a longer shutter speed to smooth out the water to try to convey what was being felt. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Schoolhouse Falls in Panthertown Valley was the last stop on our whirlwind trip a few weeks back. Luckily the rain had finally stopped...but it was also getting pretty late in the day (about 6:45pm) and darkness was starting to set in with all the clouds that were still lingering. I really wanted to get some different shots here, but the time of day and depth of water from all the rain limited me somewhat. I was also a bit tired. :-) Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Digging into the archives this weekend as I decided to push my trip to Roan Mountain back about 5-6 days. It seems the cool spring has slowed the rhododendron blooms this year...so I'm gambling a little and hoping I'll be able to catch something this coming week....

It looks so warm and inviting doesn't it? :-) Nope (wind chill in the teens and 30-50mph winds). This is the opposite view I snagged while on Rough Ridge 2 posts back. You get a bit of a sense of the wind from the motion of bushes and trees. Have a great week ya'll. This messy election season is all. most. over.

Fall finally arrived this week in North Carolina and probably most of the southeast. It was so nice and refreshing to wake up to on Friday. The family and I had a nice break last weekend in the mountains but it was still so green...just a bit of color above 5K'. It was honestly a little uninspiring...and used the time to just sleep in and relax mostly. I'm sure I'll regret that :) Anyway...this one's from a few years back...and portrait version of the same scene I posted a while back. I've noticed it's been a busy year...and not getting out as much for photography...leading me to revisit the archives...which can be fun. Have a great rest of the weekend!

It won't be much longer now... A couple of non-scorching days here in August has me dreaming of cool, crisp autumn mornings. This one's from last year's trip to Big Creek in the Smokies I never got around to sharing before. Hope everyone's having a great week...the weekend's almost here!

One from a *very* foggy morning back in October during my day-trip to the mountains. There was zero chance of some long range views so I had to improvise and see if I could pick out some interesting groupings of trees and wait for the fog to not be quite so thick. Eventually it cleared enough to capture these here. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

The leaves atop Rough Ridge were ripped from the trees on Friday so not much was left for me on Saturday. The wind, however, DID stick around. I've been up Rough Ridge numerous times, but I'd never made it to the "top" set of rocks. I was actually kind of surprised it only took a few more minutes...and only 25 total from the parking lot. Anyway...the wind up there on Saturday was the harshest I've ever tried to shoot in. The top of Grandfather was reporting over 70mph and this spot is about 600ft lower but it was still raging, enough to knock me off my stance a couple times. It was chilly too...around 34 at the parking lot so the wind chill was doing a number on the couple of exposed finger tips.

Forgot to add a link to a quick FB video where you can kind of get a sense of the wind: www.facebook.com/thefryeman/videos/10210052753250978/

I was harshly reminded last weekend just how difficult good seascape photography is. This image was from my fifth morning out of six of visiting the Coquina Rocks at Ft. Fisher/Kure Beach North Carolina. They are the only natural rocks along the whole NC coastline. Getting the right light, tide, waves, multiple waves and finding order among the chaos of the rocks was driving me crazy. I'm not sure I ever found anything I was supremely happy with, but this one was sufficient. I hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Another from my recent backpacking trip to Grassy Ridge. The sky the first couple of nights was pretty much clouded over, but on the third...it opened up. I went straight from shooting sunset back to camp to start getting the tents setup. Getting the tents close to the same brightness is always the hardest part with everyone having a different light source. Hope everyone's doing well and enjoying the Fall weather!

It's taken me a few weeks to get it posted, but this was one of my better shots, I think, from my Friday evening on Jane Bald back in June. Tommy White, Tony Gouge and I spent our first night on Grassy Ridge...but we decided the blooms were better down below, so Tony and I spent our second evening on Jane (while Tommy left for his workshop), giving us easy access for sunset...and sunrise the next morning. Since we camped literally a 1 min walk from here, we weren't in a hurry to get setup for sunset, but of course we almost waited too long. I went to check on how things were looking and there were already a few photographers setup.... :-) Once we did get in place everyone was very polite about moving around and diff compositions. Even ran into Chad Routhier Photography up there too. He barely recognized me....my button'ed up profile shot is vastly different from my look in the field, lol. Chad, Tommy and Tony all have some great work....go check them out!

For this image...I did resort to using two shots....one for the sunburst and another with it covered up to save the rest of the shot, blending them together....hopefully it works for folks; tried to make it look as natural as possible.

I'm just back from the coast for some family vacation time so I'm just starting to catch-up on folks' images. Hope everyone had a great, long weekend for the 4th of July!

Here's another of my shots of Duggers Creek Falls from the quick trip to the mountains on Saturday. I kept hoping I might get lucky with a ray of light coming in and then....boom there it was.

Shoutout to my buddy Tommy White for getting out with me last weekend for some much needed time chasing fall color in the High Country. We had no intention really of visiting this particular waterfall, but as we drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and some fog/rain appeared we figured why not. Unfortunately the fog didn’t stick around for us, but it was still totally worth the climb down. Note I didn’t say hike…it’s a climb. I’m sure some have done it without ropes, but I wouldn’t advise it. Tommy brought 2 sections of rope...and luckily there was another section left behind by someone else we could use near the bottom. The secret is certainly out on this one, but I hope folks tread lightly. It's an extremely special spot. Treat it with care...and if you even think twice about not being fit enough to do it, don't. It's dangerous. I was about to name the photo 'sacrifice'...cause you're surely to get bruised, skin a knee, shin, elbow, something (which I did). I'm not sure my image really does this place justice...I was a bit overwhelmed by it to be honest.

Anyway...hope everyone's having a great weekend!

It's the time of year I start looking through earlier trips to see what I might have missed and I came across this one from the Outer Banks. It's actually a vertorama (barely more than square tho) made from 4 horizontal images. In LR, it didn't look like much due to the distortion of the lighthouse at 24mm, but I was able to "mostly" straighten it out in PS. It also took quite a bit of cloning work to get the nasty red tower that's down south from here too. The lighthouse rays were more subtle in this image vs a couple of my other shots from here, but I think it still works... One of my favorite little features were the neon lighting bugs in the lower left. :) Hope everyone's having a great weekend! (This was w/my Bower 24mm at f2)

That tree...on the Craggy Pinnacle Trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway...it's gotta be one of the most photographed in the area, but it's a spot I don't get to often, so I was certainly glad to get the chance to grab an image of it earlier this month in the fog and rain. My buddy Tommy White and I met up at Craggy to check that area out for rhododendron blooms before heading north to Roan Mountain. The rain was pouring when we arrived, but a brief break of just drizzle let us get up the train for a bit to see what we could find. I was so frustrated with the rain I figured I got nothing...but luckily this one came out ok. I'm off to the coast today for a few days to relax w/family.... I hope everyone has a great week!

The summer is un-officially coming to a close. I didn't get out on too many outings this summer, but the trip to Big Creek in the Great Smoky Mountains was a highlight for sure. This one's taken at Mouse Creek Falls....but it's not in the picture...this is looking more upstream to the right of the falls. I'm looking forward to these greens turning into reds, oranges and yellows :-) Have a great week everyone!

Whew, it sure would be nice to be back along side this roaring creek about now...but for now, it's time to stay at home. I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy. This image is from my trip to Big Creek and the Smokies almost two years ago...

Passenger platform at Greensboro Train Station in Greensboro North Carolina. Greensboro was named after Major Nathaniel Greene who lead the Continental Army in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse nearby in 1781, the battlefield now a historical site run by the National Park Service. The J. Douglass Gaylon Depot as the station is referred to was opened in 1927 by the Southern Railway.

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Graveyard Fields was the last stop on my trip a couple weeks back and I could've probably spent a few hours here at Second Falls...but I needed to get back on the road for home. I've got a number of shots, but this was one my favorites...I think. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

One of my favorites I think...from the trip to Roan Mountain / Grassy Ridge. It's challenging, at least for me, to come up with decent sunset compositions from out that way. I'm really kicking myself for not setting some actual goals up there and just thinking "I'll know it when I see it". I wanted more like this, with some bigger rhododendron blooms in the shots, but reviewing the images just left me a tad depressed, to be honest. I'm just in a photo funk perhaps. Anyway...hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

- Grassy Ridge, Roan Mountain, North Carolina

A trip to the mountains, a bit of hiking and time behind the camera was just what I needed after a long week at work. It seemed like a treat for temps to be so cool, even at home, in the 70s and cloudy for August, but getting up to Blowing Rock and feeling 58 degrees was fantastic :-) My buddy Tommy joined me on this little trip down to Glen Burney Falls...and being right in Blowing Rock it's surprising I'd not visited it long before. It would be better with a little more flow, but I'll take it for now. Whew, I can start to see the end of the heat now I think too!

The BB&T Tower or Two Hanover Square is the second tallest building in North Carolina’s capital city Raleigh. Founded in 1792 as North Carolina’s capital and named after Sir Walter Raleigh who attempted to establish the first English colony in the new world in the 1580’s. The city of oaks is one of the fastest growing cities in the east and the entire United States. - [ ] #developportdev @gothamtomato @developphotoweek @omsystem.cameras #excellent_america #omsystem @bheventspace @bhphoto @adorama @tamrac @tiffen #usaprimeshot - [ ] #developportdev @gothamtomato @developphotoweek @omsystem.cameras #excellent_america #omsystem @bheventspace - [ ] #developportdev @gothamtomato @developphotonewsletter @omsystem.cameras #omsystem #excellent_america @bhphoto @adorama @bheventspace @tamracphoto @tiffencompany #usaprimeshot #northcarolina #raleighnc @visitnc @visitraleighnc @apple

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm truly thankful for the friendships I've made here....they make this photography journey so much better. I'm heading up to visit my Mom tonight and spend a couple days with her. The first trip up since she had a hip replacement last month. She came through it quite well, but it was a reminder to me to cherish every minute we have with our loved ones.

This one's another from my camping trip to Big Creek in the Great Smoky Mountains last month. It was still pretty dark by the time I reached Mouse Creek Falls...leaving a bit early on that old trail. Can't say I wasn't spooked a bit in the pitch black, with just me and my headlamp. :-) I was half expecting to run across a bear that morning.

Something from last year's November trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I tried sunrise at Bodie Lighthouse I think 3 different mornings to hopefully catch a great sky and was skunked each time :-D Just call me Light Killer. This was probably the best of the bunch that I liked...a classic composition with those reeds showing off their golden browns. I may need to head back to the OBX again this November...At least the skeeters aren't bad when the temps drop here. Have a great weekend everyone!

I'm sure we're due for another freeze before winter's over, but it's really starting to feel like Spring around here. This is, of course, another image from my camping trip to Grassy Ridge on Roan Mountain last June. Such a great time, and looking forward to it again this year.

Starting to get all packed up for a trip out to the Death Valley area next week. Backcountry camping for a few nights and then on to Alabama Hills for a couple nights. Not sure what I'll come away with, but it'll certainly be some new and interesting scenery.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

I just can't help myself from photographing this bridge when the conditions are decent... There have to literally be thousands of it, so...here's one more :-) This one's from my trip in early October...when Rough Ridge was socked in completely for sunrise. I'd went to Price Lake hoping for something there, but nothing was speaking to me so I thought I'd run back up the mountains and maybe catch a bit of fog here w/the bridge. Finally. Anyway...been a bit absent lately and need to catch-up w/folks. It's been a less than productive Fall...maybe I'll finally make it out for some winter shooting this year. Have a great week everyone!!

alnicol2000 and I did some scouting during an afternoon on Grassy Ridge and we couldn't help but take some time to just take in the view...

Got back Sunday evening from a nice few days camping at Big Creek (Great Smoky Mountains). It's a crap shoot getting a tent site there since it's first-come, first-serve...and luckily, there were 2 left (out of 12) when I rolled in. Tommy White joined me the next afternoon on this little excursion and we had a great time catching up, grilling some steaks (thx to Tommy :-)), sittin' by the fire...and of course trying to find some nice spots to photograph along the creek. I'm not sure I got a lot of keepers, but that's not really what it's about, but I am glad I think I got a few I like. This was one of those few. The color in the creek was hit or miss at best with plenty of green still around, but we found a few spots with a bit of yellow. Hope everyone's having a great week..it's almost Friday!

This one's from September's backpacking trip on Grassy Ridge...The actual sunrise this particular morning wasn't great, but we had a few moments with the sun going into the clouds causing some fantastic rays. I wish I'd been in a better position, but oh well :)

I never really thought I'd get a chance at shooting this bridge at night...but as luck would have it, my buddy Tommy White invited me up to help lead some Astrophotography sessions and provide some tips at the Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography weekend. Our groups session was from 10-midnight, but the Milky Way wasn't really visible for another hour or so. When I told Tommy it would line up with the end of the bridge around 4am...well, there was no choice but to stay :) Needless to say it was a LONG evening....and as sunrise started to look less than worthy continuing to stay up we rolled back to the campsite and hit the tent for a few hours :) It's been a pretty sparse spring for photography so I've not had much to share...but I'm hopeful to get out more this summer. Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Tony and I camped on the (North Carolina) backside of Jane Bald our 2nd night up there back in June...and I couldn't help but grab a quick shot after sunrise. We were close, but not too close to a drop-off...and the mountains provided a nice backdrop.

Going through the archives...and I hadn't posted this one from my trip in March 2017 to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The old Frisco Pier, battered from years of hurricanes, was removed by the National Parks Service back at the beginning of this year. It was such a great old structure to photograph. I never did get a sunrise shot from here...but am glad I had a night here, to at least grab some Milky Way images. Hope everyone is having a great weekend....I'm off today, to take both girls, 11 and 14, to Band Camp at UNCG. Just an initial taste of an empty nest this week...

Ok gray, you've had your way with us this winter. You've turned my lawn, what little I have into a swamp. You've ruined multiple weekends...and my rain coat has never seen more usage. You can make for some excellent images with your moody skies and foggy mornings, but I've had enough. I need some Vitamin D and my skin needs to feel the warmth of the sun's rays. Gray, you're welcome to come visit sometimes, but I hope your time is up for a while.

Please let this weather pattern change...

I know there's no lack of photographs of Bodie Lighthouse, but it's one of my favorite subjects to photograph on the Outer Banks, especially at night. The solitude, the varying compositions with the boardwalk, the way the fresnel lens lights up the humid air....I dunno, it just does it for me I guess LOL.

All the nice weather has everything starting to bud and turn green around here...and this image from last May on the Parkway came to mind...and I'd never posted it.

Also....time for a bit of a roadtrip... Heading to Boone this weekend for a "portfolio review" with a couple of professionals at the AMPC. Definitely putting on my thick skin...

Back from some spring break vacation and catching up... I really butchered the edit on the first pass at this composition from last summer and I felt compelled to try again. This version/stitching came out a little wider and I didn't notice until way late in the editing that the clouds weren't lit by the lightning in this one, but oh well...I felt like this version turned out much nicer overall.

Just after sunset from the FAR end of Grassy Ridge... The sunset wasn't spectacular but I certainly enjoyed the time being out there...

A bit cliche :-) but eh why not, LOL. A trip to Colorado fell through, so my buddy Tommy White invited me along on his trip to Roan Mountain last weekend. Three nights camping on Grassy Ridge was just what I needed.

The crazy weather this past week, going from single digits to 77 yesterday had me thinking about Spring already. This shot's from my trip to Roan Mountain last June...and more specifically from the first night camping on Grassy Ridge. The sky just exploded with color. This one's far, far from perfect, but it's a try at stitching three 16mm horizontals into about a square (which needed some warping to get things looking proper). I hesitated on even sharing...but gosh it was such a great sky that evening and this was one of the better ones I got. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Rain and storms have set in here for a few days it looks like... reminding me of the rainy days that put a damper on the Rhodo blooms on Roan Mountain this year. I ended up trying my best to find a few other things to photograph up there...like these ferns. :-) I wish I'd taken some more images of them really. It's much harder than I'd imagined finding some compelling angles and compositions. Have a great week everyone!

A favorite from my trip last weekend...just a simple 1-second swipe of some reeds in a march near Ft. Fisher.