John C. House's photostream Pro User

© Copyright John C. House, Everyday Miracles Photography.
www.everydaymiraclesphotography.com
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use in any way without my express consent. As always, this is better viewed large.

A break in the rain that kept the crowds out of Cades Cove, both welcome developments on a recent Sunday afternoon. This is HDR.

© Copyright John C. House, Everyday Miracles Photography.
www.everydaymiraclesphotography.com
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use in any way without my express consent. As always, this is better viewed large.

I go to visit Elkmont in the Great Smoky Mountains from time to time. There was once a very different landscape there, both social as well as physical. The area was logged extensively beginning in the 1880s, and by the early 1900s the area around Elkmont had been stripped of much of its timber. By 1910, affluent Knoxvillians had begun building summer hunting and fishing cabins in the area, and when the US Government established the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934, many of the families who owned cabins and cottages arranged to be able to continue to lease the land from the government, an arrangement that lasted until 1992 for most of the properties.

There has been some controversy about whether to restore or demolish the buildings, and in 2009 the Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and 18 cabins in that area. There are quite a few cabins, summer homes, that have been abandoned. While some are being restored, or at least preserved, the majority are being allowed to succumb to nature, which will have removed most traces of them in time. Only the stone chimneys and walls will be evidence of what was once there. Some are quickly deteriorating and look quite different between visits. I'm not sure which cabin this is but I have been here before, and I can see more decay than last time. It is on the stretch called Society Hill, on Jakes Creek. It is most certainly among those that will be nothing but a memory before long.

© Copyright John C. House, Everyday Miracles Photography.
www.everydaymiraclesphotography.com
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use in any way without my express consent. As always, this is better viewed large.

Walking about in our gardens after the rain is one of my favorite things to do, especially in the Spring when there is always something blooming. The raindrops simply beg for a closer look, and looking closer is one of the things I like best. This is not true macro, but is a pretty close look at one of our iris.

© Copyright John C. House, Everyday Miracles Photography.
www.everydaymiraclesphotography.com
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use in any way without my express consent. As always, this is better viewed large.

I've always liked looking closely at things, even as a kid with a magnifying glass. My magnifying glass now (200mm Nikkor Macro) is a bit pricier, but a great deal cooler. This is quite macro, shot at 1:1 and then cropped a fair amount, so it is at least twice life size. I probably should have gotten my extension tube to go with the macro lens so I did not have to crop, but I did not feel like stopping what I was doing. This is a very close look at part of an iris in bloom in one of our gardens right after it rained.

Explored on 5-1-13, highest at #18

© Copyright John C. House, Everyday Miracles Photography.
www.everydaymiraclesphotography.com
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use in any way without my express consent.
This one, especially, is better viewed large.

Columbine, even the tame ones like this in our gardens, are ambitious and re-seed wherever they have a chance. More and more come up every year, and when they do, they seem to sing out, proclaiming Spring is really here. Which, of course, it is.

I especially like to look closely at them, and this shot is very close, nearly true macro. It is comprised of 15 images shot at different focal planes, combined in Helicon Focus, to give this much depth of field at such close magnification.

Listen closely.