I was fortunate in that I was able to go on a photography workshop in the Blue Ridge Mountains from October 18th to the 22nd.  Andy Long, a  well known nature and landscape photographer  was leading our expedition.    I flew into Charlotte, North Carolina where I  met  the group and we drove to Boone, North Carolina where our headquarters were to be for the next few days.   Boone is a small town located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and has a population of around 20,000 people.  Of course the town is named for the famous American pioneer and explorer, Daniel Boone.  In 2012 Boone was listed among the ten best places to retire in the U.S. by U.S news.  For such a small town we found that there was a lot of traffic especially on the weekend.  This wasn't surprising because of the tourists coming to see the fall colours and do some hiking at the same time.

This shows a map of  the section of the Blue Ridge Parkway where we spent most of our time.   Boone, North Carolina  is located about 2/3rds of the way down the map, in the centre.  We were very close to one of the entrances to  the Blue Ridge Parkway which made it convenient for the early morning sunrise shots.

The first day we arrived at the  hotel in the middle of the  afternoon and by four we left for our first photo shoot.  Since we were so close to the Blue Ridge Parkway  it was a short drive.  Andy, was very familiar with the area so he knew the best  places to go.  As you can see it was quite foggy which made for some interesting shots.  

This was one of the photographers hard at work.  There were just four of us in total. 

There were lots of colors in the trees.

 I think the mist really adds interest to the photographs.  As long as there was no rain we were happy to remain at this site.    We did drive to a few other places later on but did not have too much day light left.  One of the ponds we stopped at had very little colour so we moved on.  

I included this photo to show all of the colour in the mountains.  During the next few days we found that some places had great colours and in others not so much. 

The next morning we were up and out by about 6.15.  This shot was taken at 7 AM from one of the observation points along the parkway.  You can see some fog in the background.   Sometimes you can see mountain ridge after mountain ridge with fog in the valley's between the ridges.  Unfortunately we didn't have these conditions on this trip.    It was also very very cold first thing in the morning.  We spent some time in warm van in between taking shots while waiting for colours.

Another early morning shot.

Still early morning but finally warming up as the sun came out.

We stopped to take pictures of the Linn Cove Viaduct.  There was no place to legally park where we wanted to photograph from so Andy dropped us off so we could get some shots.    This viaduct is a 1,243 foot concrete segmental bridge which snakes around Grandfather Mountain, NC.  Construction started in 1979 and  was completed in 1987 at a cost of ten million dollars.  I can only imagine what the cost would be if the bridge was built now.  This was  the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be finished.  An interesting note is that there was no access road other than the Blue Ridge Parkway itself which added to the complexity of the construction.  

On more shot taken of the viaduct.  There were a lot of beautiful fall colours- much nicer than New England this year.

On our drive we saw some great colours and trees  in the forest 

Andy took us to  a few different ponds and lakes to check out  areas.  Sims Pond  was the best one for colour.   It was really gorgeous with the reflections. This pond is stocked with trout by the North Carolina Hatcheries. 

This shot was focussed  on the ripples from the pond.

Another "arsty" photograph.

It was such a pretty area  with endless photograph opportunities that we spent quite a long time here.

Just before getting in the van, I took this shot of the shadows and pretty coloured background.  

We stopped to do a short hike  at  some water falls.  Unfortunately it was very slippery on the rocks and Andy fell in the water.  Luckily he (and the camera equipment) was not hurt but the water was freezing.  We wanted to go back to the hotel so he could change but he wouldn't hear of it.  At least it was sunny and warm once we got out of the forest.

A black and white close up shot of the rocks.

This was one of the last shots of the day.  At this time we were off the parkway and driving along country roads.  The forest was dark with a very bright sky behind so there was a lot of contrast.  Although digital cameras are pretty smart they aren't perfect.   If you were to take the above picture the camera could expose correctly for the darker forest or could expose correctly for the brighter sky but not both at the same time.  Cameras cannot record the extreme range of brightness and contrast that human eyes are capable of seeing.   The solution for taking the above type of shot is called High Dynamic Range or HDR for short.  So what I did was combine multiple images of different exposures.  So this final image is actually five different images combined into one using special software.