Blue Ridge Parkway
It doesn’t get much better than these 469 miles of scenic beauty. From the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I have done the entire stretch countless times and there are so many beautiful places to see that it would be impossible to list them all. The lowest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway (The James River Bridge) is my absolute favorite. The beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and the James River offer a view here that is really hard to beat. Other beautiful locations I love to visit include Waterrock Knob, Devils Courthouse, Looking Glass Rocks, Cowee Mountain Overlook, Ravens Roost, Peaks of Otter to name just a few.
The Parkway was intended to be a getaway to nature for people living in the city. When I photograph the Parkway I always keep that in mind. I try to show as little of the road as I possibly can; the whole purpose is to see beauty that surrounds you. The road is just the means to get you there. Many of my favorite images and places are scene here and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did taking them.
I feel that a lot of people and maybe even the National Park Service really forgets what the Blue Ridge Parkway is really about. Everyone focuses so much on photographing the road its self. It seems to me people think that the road is the leading role, when in fact its not even really suppose to be on stage. I want to reiterate what I said just a moment ago, the road is just the means to get you there. The Blue Ridge Parkway was created to bring people out of the cities and place them submerged into nature.
I want my images to showcase the immense beauty that surrounds the Blue Ridge Parkway. I want them to draw the viewer into the original thought process of the Parkway. It’s not just another road to travel down, it’s an escape.
I hope to encourage people to do more than just travel the road, stop and hike a trail, watch a sunrise or sunset, take in the views and maybe try to have a pic-nick.
One of my favorite times to go out on the Parkway is during bad weather. The Parkway is mostly along the ridges, so you can get a whole new perspective looking out over the landscape, you can really see the weather.
These are just a few examples of the beauty that surrounds the Blue Ridge Parkway, if you would like to see more of my work for the National Park Service, you can follow me on facebook and Instagram. The links are below.
Also, I do sell prints of all of my images and I offer leasing rights to my images for use in marketing for companies, churches and organizations.