Cowee

Standing atop the Cowee Mountain Overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway is truly breathtaking. Often thought of as one of the mountains best sunset locations here in Western North Carolina, but that’s not all it is. This overlook offers a impressive few, an intense amount of depth, and a seemingly endless view of the rolling mountains. It’s also a amazing place to really grasp the endless sky, the intense cloud formations, and the incredible fade to blue that give these mountains their name. Far in the background you can even see the crepuscular rays dropping down in the back. Endless wonder, eternal majesty, the mountains that draw us in, and shelter us far from home.

This image is of course a panorama, one of the few I display on this site. Panoramas aren’t the easiest thing to shoot in some instances, especially with racing clouds, and high winds, but more about that later. This image was shot well before sunset, I had been waiting for a thunder storm to roll in, but was left feeling a bit deflated when I realized it was coming in from behind the ridges to the right. To make the most of the day, i decided to give a pano a shot, and in this case, I feel as though it paid off.

Editing this image was standard, to a point. The first step though was to stitch the seven vertical shots together. I wanted about a 45 degree view over the mountains, with the full sky on display. So I set to work finding the correct stitch to convey the depth, but not loose the viewer in the wrong elements, you can see the bottom of the photo has a distinctive curve to it. After that, I brought the shadows up, dehazed the image, and began applying contrast and softness to various areas while also modifying the color temperature of the sky. All in all, about two hours of work on the edit spread over two days. It’s important to take breaks in your edits, you will quickly find yourself going overboard, give your eyes a break, and come back to it.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f8
ISO: 125
SS: 1/320th
Focal: 17mm

Fujinon 16-55mm