Things are starting to pop on the bank job front. This past week I had my second interview for a job with a small community bank that I would really like to work for. Tomorrow I have an interview for a position at my former employer that sounds interesting and promising. As opposed to a number of jobs I have applied for lately, I am well-qualified for both of these positions and – most importantly I think – have good connections behind me for each one. Details to come but fingers and toes are crossed!

This past weekend Kathy & I joined some of our CNPA buddies for a day trip to the Linville Falls area on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It seems amazing to say this, but we spent the whole day there and I never went to the falls! I did join part of the group in walking to Dugger’s Falls, a little-visited but pretty little waterfall about 50 yards from the parking lot. I didn’t take any photos there but enjoyed the view.

After lunch we spent some time hunting wildflowers in the Linville Falls picnic area. I shot some Bee Balm and sunflowers, but had seen some roadside Black-Eyed Susans along the Parkway near the road to the visitor center, so as the afternoon light got nice I went back and paid a visit to these beauties. When I saw them earlier in the day I had visualized this scene, shooting from below with the blue sky and puffy clouds in the background. I know this is way out of character for me, but here I was again laying down on the ground – shooting up through the flowers at the sky!

This is the shot I saw in my mind’s eye and feel it is really close to what I was thinking when I first saw the flowers from the road. I think this scene may benefit from some judicious cropping, but for now I’m going to look at it full-frame for a while until I make up my mind!

Last week I attended my second photography workshop with Les Saucier. The learning opportunities from an outstanding teacher are unlimited if you find someone who you connect with on an artistic, creative and inspirational level. Les is such a teacher, and I am still digesting the nuggets I gathered in just a few hours on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The best and most important thing I came back with is a deeper understanding of the creative process. Les espouses, and I’m paraphrasing quite a bit, that the creative process takes three steps. The first is when one first starts out in art or photography and sees subjects. That is the step that most people are at and often stay at, because we are naturally inclined to look at things. We pay a lot of attention to composition and lighting, and our photography is all about our subject. I do it, we all do it, but there’s more.

The second step is when we go beyond seeing objects as subjects and start seeing characteristics – lines, patterns, shapes and colors. This is an interesting phase, because we start thinking about relationships, as in how these lines, patterns, shapes and colors interact. These are the details that attract us to a scene, but we don’t always know it and can’t always identify them until and unless we take time to think about what we are seeing. Once we stop and look, we see all kinds of things that attract our eyes and stimulate our senses. Once we see those relationships we are able to work our composition to best express the things we see, and that translates into a more powerful and emotional photograph. Sometimes the things we think attracted us to a scene are not what we end up with, because as we explore we start to see smaller and more subtle details that were not immediately apparent.

The third step gets into the emotional response we have to a scene, especially once we have learned about how relationships attract us and how we respond. This step goes far beyond subjects and relationships and starts dealing with ideas. Les pointed out some flowers to one of the participants, who looked at them and responded, “I don’t know, they look kind of spent.” To which Les replied, “so shoot ‘spent.'” Yikes! I made a comment about how the occasional breeze made it hard to get the shot I wanted. Les suggested that I should “shoot the wind.” Double yikes! If you look at a scene and think “this is so peaceful,” how do you shoot Peaceful? How do you create a photograph that best describes Peaceful? Or glorious, sad, cheerful or soothing? I’m not sure I’m able to go much beyond this point right now, but it’s given me a lot to think about.

Turk’s Cap Lilies are my favorite summertime wildflower. Their curves and colors have a sensuous beauty that I just love. I tried to make an image that captures “sensuous beauty” and goes beyond the typical documentary photograph. This image may not be technically perfect and probably won’t win any contests but I think it goes a long way toward expressing what I feel when I look at a Turk’s Cap Lily.

I don’t generally talk about gear, but the setup for this was a monster so I have to tell. 70-200 zoom at 150mm with a 500D closeup lens, 2X teleconverter and 25mm extension tube at f32 (my metadata says f64 because of the 2X converter), 1/3 second at ISO 1000. Les says this qualifies for “damn close.” It’s amazing how much dust shows up at f64!

I’ve been working on a number of projects lately and have gotten a bit behind in my posting. I’ve got lots of ideas so please bear with me while I extract them from my head without doing any major damage!

A few weeks ago I attended a macro photography workshop with Les Saucier, and I’m attending another one with Les this coming week. He is the master when it comes to macro, and he teaches a way of seeing that is quite a bit different than my normal view. Since the last workshop and in preparation for the next one I have been practicing macro and close-up techniques to add some variety to my own shooting and add another arrow to my quiver (as it were).

Fellow photographer and CNPA member Edgar Payne stopped by this afternoon and we spent some time shooting summer wildflowers on the Torrence Creek Greenway, which runs through my neighborhood. I got a few good shots, but mostly ones that will help me improve for the next time.

This is a close-up of Queen Anne’s Lace. The radial pattern reminds me of fireworks, which makes it an appropriate image for this 4th of July holiday.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for more of these close-up images in the near future!

I shot some traditional landscape stuff but also played around with motion blur while I was there and came up with this image that I feel captures the softness of the early light and the drama of the surrounding landscape.

Kathy & I spent last weekend with a bunch of CNPA folks at Roan Mountain, Tennessee. The rhododendron there were not quite at peak, although they were amazing at Craggy Gardens, just down the road on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The display there was the best I have seen in years. I’ll be posting some more images from that trip in a few days as I get them processed.

Sunrise on Round Bald is one of the highlights of a trip to Roan Mountain with or without the rhododendron, and this year’s sunrise morning did not disappoint. While we were there, however, I came across this other-worldly looking creature. I didn’t find the mother ship, but I’m certain that beings not from this planet had also come to Roan to experience the beauty of this wonderful place.

Actually, this is CNPA member and Charlotte chapter co-coordinator Edgar Payne in his hunting attire, out to shoot the bald with the rest of us!

As Kathy and I prepare to head off to Roan Mountain, TN for the weekend to (hopefully) shoot some Catawba Rhododendron, I thought I’d share another Buried Treasure.

This is an image of Mount McKinley (aka Denali – The Great One) from Stony Hill Overlook in Denali National Park & Preserve, Alaska. This is the best view we had of the mountain during our stay there. I like this image because of the lines and layers of the foreground terrain, and the mysterious shrouding of the mountain by the clouds that surround it.

If there’s such a thing as a Tom Dills Signature Image (and I believe there is!) it’s a scene with dramatic light and lots of sunbeams. I’m still back in the time machine in 2005, but now I’m up to August!

This sunrise image was taken along the Blue Ridge Parkway near the Green Mountain Overlook, near MP 301. The view is of the upper Yadkin Valley and the town of Lenoir. It’s a favorite summertime sunrise spot of mine!

I’ve been playing around with camera movement to create impressionistic images for a while now and have had a fair amount of success with water as my subject. I’ve been less successful in getting results I was happy with on land. This past weekend I finally made some images that are more successful. It’s a great way to make pictures when it is windy!

I also had an instance where I had camera movement of a different kind, when my tripod started to sink into a rotted log during a 2-second exposure. That result was much less successful!

This image was taken from Flat Rock, on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain.