Any time I can photograph wildlife, I'm content.  While the Smokies don't have the number or diversity of wildlife as the western parks do, there's still some nice wildlife to see.  The only bear I saw was one grazing in a meadow at a great distance, so I was unable to photograph it.  But I saw several deer and a lot more turkeys than I remember from the days when I frequented this park regularly.  The whitetail buck photographed above was about the largest I saw.  In this image, he is walking towards the road, a soft misty fog enveloping the scene as the sun back lit everything.  I exposed for the deer, letting everything else fall where it may.  The backlighting on the leaves and grasses was nice, especially with the light fog.

 Elk are more common in the Smokies.  They can regularly been seen in Cataloochee Valley, but this bull had his harem of cows near Oconaluftee, where they can also frequently be seen.  The morning mist lay close to the ground as the bull moved towards a rival.  The sun still sat below the mountains.  While I hoped that the elk would stay in the meadow and the sun would backlight the elk and the mist, it would not be so, and the elk moved into the forest before the sun crested the mountains.  I metered the exposure off the elk and adjusted the white balance later.

Finally, while I saw more turkeys than I could count, rarely where they close enough to photograph.  And when they were, the light was often not strong enough for a fast shutter speed.  This turkey however, stepped out of the shadows and into this patch of light, giving me a fast enough shutter as well as some interesting lighting.  I metered the overall scene but then underexposed the shot so all would be in shadow except the area were the sun was shining.

The Smokies are home to an amazing diversity of wildlife, including a huge variety of salamanders, raccoons, opossums, deer, elk, black bears, coyotes, squirrels, and other creatures.  I do feel fortunate however, to come away with the limited number of wildlife shots that I did, as any chance to see and photograph wildlife is always a blessing!

After leaving San Francisco, I took a week off from the road before heading up to North Carolina to photograph all that autumn offers.  I had better luck in 2008 with leaf color, but the weather conditions created some great photo opportunities.  I also spent some time photographing a few waterfalls and, of course, wildlife.  I will post separate entries on those two topics later in the week.  The above photo was taken in Cades Cove.  The church is the Missionary Baptist Church.  Normally, I wouldn't have stopped here, but as I drove past, I noticed the amazing rays of light seen to the right of the church in this photo.  There were no cars behind me, so I backed up and got out, finding an array of compositions to photograph the light coming through the fog.  The Photo of the Week on travelsinbearcountry.com was taken in the woods near this church.

This image was taken from Morton's Overlook, near Newfound Gap.  The sun was setting behind the ridges to the left of this scene, but the horizon was lit up with this nice color.  I framed the ridges to compose the scene, using a telephoto zoom lens.  I metered the scene and then underexposed it so that the sky would hold color and the ridges would go to silhouette.

The final image I'll showcase for now is this one, also taken in Cades Cove.  Again, the fog created an amazing diffused light coming through the trees.  As I rounded a corner, I saw this scene unfold before me.  I immediatedly pulled over and set up this shot.  I metered off the scene, which was bright with the sun behind the large tree in the left of this image.  I wanted to hold some detail in the trees and leaves, so I opened up the exposure by about a stop.

The beauty of our national parks is that while I missed the peak of the fall color, the photo opportunities that exist more than made up for it.  Gotta love that!

The final leg of our road trip was San Francisco.  We had two days here, both of which we spent exploring the city.  The first day was spent finding a place to eat in China Town and then the girls wanted to do some shopping down town.  The second day started at Fisherman's Wharf, where we did all the usual tourist things, including seeing the sea lions at Pier 39 (pictured below), tasting the local cuisine, checking out the aquarium, and a stop at Rodney Lough's gallery.  I met Rodney in '07 in Washington DC, where we were both displaying images at the Smithsonian for Nature's Best.  If in San Francisco, I highly recommend checking out his gallery at Pier 39.  Being Columbus Day weekend, there was a parade and an air show where we saw the Blue Angels perform.  Once we had our fill of the wharf, we took a cruise on San Francisco Bay.  Despite the cold, gray day, this was still fun.  Afterwards, we headed to the Palace of Fine Arts.  The photo above shows the romanesque style architecture in its garden-like setting.  It was taken hand held with a wide angle lens.  The photo below shows the sea lions at Pier 39.  This image was also hand held taken with a moderate telephoto lens.

After the Palace of Fine Arts, we found a nice Thai place for dinner.  While there, we decided to head to the Marin Headlands to try to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge at night.  The below image was made from the viewing area at the first exit as you go towards the Marin Headlands.  It was also shot with a wide angle lens.  The next morning required an early start as we headed off to the airport.

Our trip along the Oregon coast took us from Cannon Beach down to Florence.  Interesting stops included, in no particular order, Cape Perpetua, Seal Rocks, Heceta Head, Yaquina Head, and probably a couple of others that I can't recall at the moment.  One of the many highlights of this trip were the many lighthouses.  The lighthouse above is Tillamook Head Lighthouse, viewed from Ecola State Park.  The lighthouse is no longer active and has a fabled history due to huge waves breaking on the rocks.  In this photo, taken during a fog on the horizon, blurring the line between sea and sky, the entire rock face is covered by sea lions.  I saw them around the base only in the photo after I took it.  Upon further inspection, I noticed they were up the rock face all the way to the lighthouse.

This lighthouse, photographed in late afternoon light, is Yaquina Head Light.  This photo was taken from near the parking light, using the small grassy rise to hide the path and a few other distractions.  I preferred the vertical composition as it actuates the height of the tower.  In the lower left corner, two people can be seen in this image.  I felt they also gave a nice perspective for height. 

This final lighthouse is the most photogenic of the ones we saw on our trip.  It is Heceta Head Lighthouse.  As can be seen, it sits high on a bluff above the ocean.  It is possible to hike up to the lighthouse, and it's worth doing.  Not only is the lighthouse worth viewing up close, but the surrounding coastline from this vantage point is spectacular.  This shot was taken from a viewpoint a mile or so south on highway 101 from the lighthouse.  Directly below us on a beach protected by cliffs on all sides, could be seen several hundred sea lions basking in the sun.  This image was taken with a medium telephoto lens.

For other images from Oregon and San Francisco, please see my website at www.travelsinbearcountry.com/oregon09.htm .

After we left the Columbia River Gorge, we headed towards Cannon Beach, where we were going to stay the night, but not before a stop in downtown Portland for lunch.  When we finally arrived at Cannon Beach, we were amazed.  The beach itself was as beautiful as expected, but the town was remarkable in that there wasn't a chain anything to be seen.  It was full of interesting shops and restaurants, all of which added to the charm of the place.  After getting settled in, we went out onto the beach about an hour before sunset.

Justyna actually noticed the ripples in the sand that comlemented Haystack Rock.  Edyta photographed it first with her Canon point and shoot.  When I went to offer some compositional advice, I noticed she had framed the shot just as I would have.  She has a good eye for photography.  I framed this shot with the ripples leading to seastack and placed it off center in the upper left of the frame.  I also shot this vertical, which works well too.  I used a wide angle lens to actenuate the ripples in the foreground.  The warmer lighting on the right of the frame is courtesy of a late afternoon fog that was slowly dissipating as the sun set.

When the sun lowered, it dropped behind a layer of clouds.  At this point, some really nice color was in the sky.  The fog was mostly gone, but the sun was still diffused by some thinner clouds above the thicker line.  I noticed the large boulder and felt it would make a strong foreground component offsetting the seastacks in the background.  I shot this image with a wide angle, but also zoomed in tight on the boulder as well.  I prefer the wide angle look.

As the sun dropped behind the clouds, the color continued to be really nice.  This scene had drawn me in and I was shooting a variety of compositions but preferred this one, again with a wide angle.

While we waited for the sun to finally set, the clouds really began to thicken up quickly.  We hoped for a dramatic sunset, but the clouds were just too thick on the western horizon and it never materialized.  So we finished our walk on the beach.  We finished the evening at a great Thai restaurant, probably the only one in Cannon Beach.  The rest of our coastal trip didn't produce as nice light as this first evening did, but the coast is spectular.  I'll post a follow up entry in a few days highlighting some of the lighthouses along the coast.