Waterfalls

Ive had some time to edit pictures over this long weekend, so I thought Id share some more pictures of my trip to Maggie Valley, NC. If anyone is interested in prints of any of these shots let me know. I ll sell them for 15$ for an 8 x 10. Kirk

Featured Photo

I submit photos to several contest sites such as Betterphoto.com, soaphoto.com and xtremecamera.com. I was thrilled to see that xtremecamera.com chose the photo- "THE GENTLE FLOW" to be a featured photo on their site. Here is the critique from Professional Photographer J. Manzione.
"To me, it doesn’t get any better than this. A perfect 5 stars. Living in New Hampshire I see hundreds, if not thousands of fall foliage type photographs every year. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but I am always looking for someone that can give me a fresh perspective with it. A new way to see Fall, something unique. Man, this has to be the best fall shot I’ve seen in the last couple of years.

The flow of the water is amazing, such softness, and the curves are great. Using f22 assures that everything in the scene is going to be sharp, and it certainly did so here. The 16mm wide angle, focusing on the rock/leaves lower, slightly off-center, giving the scene a grandness despite its close-up elements is just spectacular. No over exposure, nothing under exposed, just a perfect storm of everything hitting exactly right.

Seeing the effects of October in New England in this manner is inspiring. Just when you think this season has been photographed in every imaginable way someone comes along and offers up something unique, and executed extremely well.
Bravo!"
In the next couple of weeks, we will see how well the shot does on the other contest sites. I hope this post doesnt come across as arrogant. I was really excited to have praise from other professional photographers. Kirk
Update-The Gentle Flow also got a Weekly Hot Pick on soaphoto.com for the week of oct 19-25

Mountain Man

...I was quite the mountain man this weekend. Roughing it in a 39 dollar a night motel from the 1970's. It was a perfect location but the amenities were lacking, especially the second night we were there. I think a breaker was tripped and the heat and water no longer worked. The motel room was close to 40 degrees. Lets just say I woke up with a cold nose. I had a fantastic time meeting up with other photographers from the website soaphoto.com There were six of us who spent several hours photographing a waterfall on the outskirts of Maggie Valley, NC. The second day we went to Cataloochee State Park just outside the Cherokee Indian Reservation. It was so amazing because the wild elk run free out there. I have to thank GOD (and my wife Crystal-watching the kids) for such an amazing weekend. Kirk

Head for the mountains

Im really excited this weekend to be going to Maggie Valley, NC. Im going to the mountains with a friend to meet with a bunch of other photographers. We are all participants in the Samsung of America photo website. (soaphoto.com) It should be a ton of fun taking pictures with people ive never met in person before. The last time I went to the mountains it was in Gatlinburg, TN. I havent been in the mountains during peak fall season in many years, so Im really looking forward to it. When I get back Ill post a bunch of pics for all to see. Kirk

Team Tennis

To go along with my last post- I just finished the team photo last night and wanted to present the girls with 4 color variations on it. I am making a DVD with all the images for the girls on the tennis team.

Some Serious Tennis

I thought Id put up a couple of the shots I took of the girls tennis team that I coach. The girls were so fun to work with. I actually had to stop taking pics for a couple minutes because they cracked me up! We wanted some tennis balls to be flying around in the background, so I had a girls stand behind the one we were shooting and had them throw tennis balls off of their racquet. The balls went up in the air and ended up landing on the girl's heads. You can click on the picture of the tennis players to see it FULL size.