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Tag: Photography
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Image for the Asking: A Little River That’s Not Really So Little
Story and image by Don McGowan
There is a place in the Smokies known as Collins Gap. It is where the western slope of Mount Collins tumbles down to meet the eastern slope of Kuwahi (Clingmans Dome). In other words, it’s a high place along the crest of the Smokies ridge, somewhere around 5,723 feet.
Below the north face of Collins Gap,
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Echoes in the Mountains: A herd in sacred waters
Images by Phoebe Carnes
Before I began observing elk in Smokies, I never thought of them as water-loving creatures. But it wasn’t long before I learned that the elk here have a profound relationship with the Oconaluftee River that is as fascinating as it is multifaceted.
Bull B takes a drink on a misty September morning in
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Image for the Asking: The Many Connections of a Small, Nameless Stream
Story and image by Don McGowan
Although you may not be familiar with it, the wet weather creek in this image is associated with the founding history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As far as I know, the stream at this point in its journey has no name, though it will eventually merge its waters into Walker Camp Prong—half of West
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Image for the Asking: A Winter Wonderland—Whither the Darling Buds of May?
Story and image by Don McGowan
When I left my home state of Georgia more than a quarter century ago to live in the shadow of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Boyd’s Creek, Tennessee, in 1993 to be exact), photographing snow in the park was a straightforward affair. If your vehicle was a four-wheel drive, you drove up to the entrance
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Image for the Asking: A Reflection on the Nature of Things
Story and image by Don McGowan
It is so tempting, given the amazing literal beauty of the geography of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to become a photographic documentarian of these wonderful mountains and valleys, complete with their complex, diverse array of life forms and habitats. To do this, however, would be, in my humble opinion,
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Image for the Asking: Seeing the Forest Within the Trees
Story and image by Don McGowan
There are many folks I know who readily assert that their favorite season in the Smokies is winter. They claim this not because there are relatively fewer tourists streaming into Sevier and Blount counties, or back and forth over Newfound Gap from Cherokee and Bryson City. They make this assertion for the very
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Echoes in the Mountains: On Bulls and Close Encounters
Images by Phoebe Carnes
When I first started studying the bull elk of Oconaluftee last fall, I quickly learned that each male is an individual. They each have their own quirks that make them easily recognizable. One of the first males I began to study was a bull who goes by the name of “B” within the park service.
At nearly 14
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Image for the Asking: A Place Called Mulberry
Story and image by Don McGowan
There is a great mountain in the heart of the Smokies. It is called Kuwahi. It has this name because it is a place where mulberry trees were found; in Tsalagi—the language of the Cherokee—Kuwahi means “Mulberry Place.”
To the Cherokee people it is sacred; and to the European settlers who
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Image for the Asking: Curtain Call
Story and image by Don McGowan
I have been a professional nature and travel photographer for nearly 27 years, and the first word that comes readily to mind to describe my experience of those years is “gratitude.” The worst day I’ve ever had doing photography was infinitely better than the best day I ever had in an office&
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Image for the Asking: Little is a Relative Term
“Little” can be a relative term. For example, at an elevation of approximately 5100 feet, in the lofty vicinity of Collins Gap, small streams form on the north slope of Clingmans Dome, the highest point in all of Tennessee.
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