Back from North Carolina

Mountain Sentinel.  iphone image.

I am finally done traveling for a month or two.  My latest trip to North Carolina, and Asheville,  in particular, was to look at potential areas where we would like to move to in 2019.  With our realtor, we examined a number of homes for sale in the Asheville area.  When we were not doing that, we were exploring the area's natural beauty.   The more we saw, the more convinced we are about making a choice to retire there.  One of my prerequisites is that the future home have space for a darkroom, and some studio space.  It's amazing how many homeowners have completely finished their basements into living spaces, which makes installing a darkroom more problematic.    I am hopeful that we will find the right combination of size, amenities, garden space, kitchen space, darkroom space, and two-car garage by the time we are ready to sell our house here in Ann Arbor.

North Carolina is certainly a great place to move for nature and landscape photography.  The western part of course, is mountainous, and such a contrast to the flat state of Michigan and the Midwest, in general.  I grew up in the Adirondacks of New York, and while I miss that state's topography, I would like to live the rest of my life where winter is not such a big deal.  We have lived in Michigan since 1981, and as much as I enjoy the Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula, it's an 8 hour drive at minimum to Marquette.  I am looking forward to new adventures in NC and of course, being in the eastern US again.  I am doing a lot of research on the photographic community, and people doing traditional photographic processes, in particular.  The film shooting will go on!

I shot some of the new Kodak Ektachrome E100 on the trip, and will have some examples to post in a couple of weeks. I shot with my Nikon FM, and it remains a great camera for trips.  I took the 50mm f/1.4, 28mm f/2.8, and 105mm f/2.5.    I only shot 6 rolls of film during the week, but I did do a lot of site scouting, and that was beneficial. 

Now I know why they are called the Blue Ridge Mountains

The Blue Ridge Parkway just has to be the most scenic route I have been on.  No commercial traffic, which makes the drive much better.  It seems like there was an amazing view of some sort almost continuously as we drove from Asheville NE to Blowing Rock.   I look forward to being able to drive just a few minutes to the BRP and enjoy the scenery!  NC has waterfalls galore, and I picked up a copy of Kevin Adams' "North Carolina Waterfalls."  Splendid photography, and a great guide.  I look forward to doing pinhole photography at some of the waterfalls next year.

Now that I am home, I have a lot of topics and reviews that have been on the back-burner and will start putting them on the blog shortly. 

Happy Halloween!