I had seen these chairs on an Instagram post from Biltmore and hoped I would find them during our visit. No one was sitting in them at first, but I found a cute model who agreed to pose. 😉
Rock On!
Tag Archives: Asheville
First-Class Glass
No, I’m not talking about camera lenses OR airline travel! I’m talking about beautiful, hand-crafted glass like that found at Lexington Glassworks in Asheville, North Carolina.
I had intended to write this post a while back, but it sort of got lost in the shuffle of fall and the holidays. During our visit to Asheville for our 40th anniversary, Kathy & I visited Lexington Glassworks during one of our walks around town. We’ve visited Lexington before, and have acquired only a small amount of their glass, given the number of times we’ve been there, but it is one of those places we just have to visit whenever we are in town.
One of the many cool things about Lexington is that they openly encourage picture taking. I asked anyway, just to be polite, and the girl we talked to was very nice about it. Sure, she said, let me know if you have any questions or need help.
The larger pieces are stunningly beautiful, and the reason we don’t have more is that we just don’t have a suitable place to display things like that. We have some shelves on order which will hopefully rectify that situation, although after buying the shelves we’ll need to re-stock the souvenir fund to buy more things to put on them! 😉
Partially-related question: I post photos to Instagram through my Firefox browser, using a well-known workaround that “fools” Instagram into thinking I am on a mobile device. I’ve taken the app off all of my mobile devices. With the app I used to be able to create a post with multiple photographs, but can’t seem to find a way to do it through the browser. Anyone have any experience with this? I’d like to be able to share these photos in a single post and tag the company’s page, rather than post them individually, which makes for a really annoying feed!
Weekend In Asheville: A Preview
Kathy & I spent last weekend in Asheville, NC celebrating our 40th anniversary. While the weekend was mostly about celebration, we did manage to do more than just eat and drink – I took a few (hundred) photos. About 770, actually! 🙂
I did something a little bit different (for me) this time, taking only my X-T4 and 3 prime lenses – the 14mm f2.8, 23mm f1.4 and the 35mm f1.4. Before heading out the door I would decide which lens to take, then “see” at that focal length during our outing. I love doing that, as it is a good exercise in visualizing a scene then adjusting with my feet as needed. I mostly stuck with the 23 and 35 except for our visit to Biltmore House, where I used the 14 and which I will detail in a future post or two.
I’m still trying to get through the rest of my photos from our Northwest road trip, so before I spend too much more time with these Asheville photos I’m going to try and get the Northwest photos done first. So expect a little bouncing around the country as I get through the rest of my Northwest photos. 🙂
Miscellaneous Randomness
Waynesville, North Carolina
Trying to get better at just posting pictures when I don’t have a lot of words. Â Whew….!
Some random photos from around Western NC a few weekends ago.
Frog Level North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina
People Pictures
Monte very astutely observed in my last post that all of the photos I posted had people in them, and what a departure that was for me. Â And it’s true – people who don’t know what kind of photography I do frequently ask me if I do weddings, and I almost always reply that I don’t take pictures with people in them.
On our recent visit to Asheville, however, I took way more pictures of people than I ever do. Â After Monte’s comment I realized that, for me, Asheville was all about the people.
A lot of places tend, for me at least, to be about other things – buildings, architecture, historical landmarks, nature, etc. Â But even though most of those other things can be found there, Asheville was mostly about the people.
I think the thing I enjoyed most about shooting there was that no one really paid any attention to me. Â Here in Charlotte, a person with a camera is often looked upon with suspicion, especially by the rent-a-cops that stand in front of (“guard” would be a misuse of the word) the bank buildings. Â A few people cast a sideways glance, but it seemed like for the most part I was just another tourist, and one who happened to have a camera.
I did find that using a wrist strap on the camera instead of a shoulder strap helped me be more spontaneous, and to a certain extent it made the camera a little less apparent to the people I was aiming it at. Â All in all it was a fun experience, and one I hope to try again soon!
An Afternoon In Asheville
In all the time we have spent in Western North Carolina, we have spent comparatively little time actually in Asheville. Â Everyone knows Asheville, some people know about Brevard, but relatively few people know about places like Waynesville, Sylva, Bryson City and others.
Most of our previous visits to Asheville have been for specific purposes – a visit to a museum, meeting with a photo editor, or a quick stop on our way to somewhere else. Â But Asheville is much more than just a place to pass through. Â In many ways it is far more cultured than the pseudo-culture of Charlotte, although admittedly there are places in Charlotte that are pretty darned interesting as well.
I have spent virtually no time in Asheville with a camera, so on Sunday afternoon we decided that it was high time we do some exploring. Â A quick check of the calendar confirmed that Octoberfest was the previous day, so other than the usual Sunday tourist crowd we figured we’d be OK. Â And were right, although the “usual tourist crowd” was still a bunch of people!
We had a nice few hours in town, checked out a few of the highlights but left plenty of places yet to be explored. Â We’ll definitely have Asheville on our short list for places to go back to soon. Â It’s even a pretty decent day trip from the Big City, so we just have to make a go of it in the near future.
