Another visit to the Appalachian Trail (AT) in North Georgia. This time I met up with fellow photographer Bryan Garris at the Byron Reese trail near the Wasil-yi store on Hwy 19. The first .7 miles of this trail is a steep switchback wide path with lots of steps. At the point where the Byron Reese trail meets the AT, instead of continuing on to Blood Mountain, we then turned East toward Neel’s Gap and walked about another mile gently down hill. We stopped often to capture some interesting trees and rocks. The hike back was less difficult but still very tiring. At the parking lot there is a nice small waterfall and tunnel that goes under the road.

Shooting with someone was very different for me. We were carrying similar cameras and lenses, we often saw the same subject matter, and  at times both of us shot the same subject but not from the same tripod holes. Bryan’s approach is to take lots of photos from different angles or using different lenses, while I rarely shoot more than one image of a subject (something I need to improve on). We talked about photography, developers, style, toners, films, formats, interesting locations, and other general topics as we hiked. This was a tough slog for me and had to rest plenty while Bryan was much younger and fit than I but was patient. I was also trying out my new (to me) Chamonix 04N2 4×5 camera so was having to learn its idiosyncrasies and taking longer than usual to set up.

Shot 1 – Mushroom in a Fallen tree’s roots. We passed by this mushroom and said we might stop back later. Bryan found  a small creek up ahead a short distance so I went back and captured it. The lighting was dim and the difference in tone between the mushroom and detailed shadow areas was about 3 stops. I took two shots, one overexposed by 2 stops, dark shadows on zone 5+  and one placing the dark shadows near Zone 3+. We shall see which I like better. See image here

Shot 2 – We found an interesting root embedded in a rock wall. We both took this image with different points of view. Bryan used an extreme wide angle and got in very close. I used my 65mm lens from a bit further back. Tonalities in this shot were only  2 stops apart and required a long shutter of 22 seconds at f8. I do have bits of sky in the image but may still expand the negative to increase the contrast of the main parts.

Shot 3 – While Bryan was focused on an interesting fallen tree I saw a Ferns and Trees composition that captured my attention. With fairly even lighting this scene was also low contrast with only 2 stops difference. f32 for 1.4(ish) seconds on my 135 lens. The shutter 1 second timer is a bit slow so closer to 1.4 seconds so changed from f22.5 to f32. It will be interesting to see how Pyrocat HD  will expand the negative for N+3 tonality.

Shot 4 –  The waterfall and bridge tunnel – I shot this with a normal 180mm from a distance, while Bryan worked the scene from different views and lenses. I was worn out but noted the location for future visits. Bryan commented there is potential for an 8×20 format composition. Another long exposure due to sun going in and out of clouds at f22 for 14 seconds. When the sun was out the small waterfall was lit up a bit. So I took two shots with the sun shining and one while in more subdued light. The overall brightness of foreground did not change much. I need to reshoot this one.