This past weekend we took a short trip to the Georgia Botanical Gardens, located in Athens, Georgia. It was a pleasant April day – cool, wind blowing  – relaxing.

We wound our way through I’d say three quarters of the paved trails of the gardens, spending around 2-3 hours doing this. Going in the spring is a great time to see all of the blooming foliage. There are also an additional five miles of more rugged trails that I have yet to check out.

The gardens are broken in several themes including:

1.   Heritage Garden
2.   International Garden
3.   Shade Garden
4.   Native Flora Garden
5.   Flower Garden
6.   Middle Oconee River

Heritage Garden info:

“The Heritage Garden contains plants of historic and socioeconomic interest to Georgia. Included in this garden are ornamentals such as heirloom annuals and perennials and antique roses; fruit crops such as apples, pears, and peaches; row crops such as cotton, tobacco, and peanuts; and a selection of plants native to Georgia.” -  Georgia Bot. website

International Garden info:

“…International Garden pays homage to three plant hunters whose work has had significant influence in the American South—the Bartrams, father and son (who named Franklinia in honor of Benjamin Franklin) and Ernest Henry “Chinese” Wilson whose Asian introductions have proven well adapted to the Southeast.” - Georgia Bot. website

Shade Garden info:

“Prominent architectural features of the Shade Garden are the wisteria covered arbor situated on the Azalea District Plaza and the Mathis Plaza with pool and sculpture, La Grazia Dello Stelo (The Graceful Stem) by Athens sculptor John Kehoe. The Mathis Plaza honors the first president of the Friends of the Garden, William Mathis. The Shade Garden is most colorful in spring when the dogwoods and azaleas are in flower but is interesting year-round.” – Georgia Bot. website

Native Flora Garden info:

“Many of the species found here are woodland species, some rare, threatened or endangered. Other rare, threatened, and endangered species can be found in the Bog Garden and Threatened and Endangered Plants section of the International Garden.”  – Georgia Bot. website

Flower Garden info:

“The Herb Garden contains collections of herbs used for culinary, dye, fragrance, and ceremonial purposes; medicinal herbs are displayed in the Physic Garden reminiscent of a 17th century knot garden. These two gardens represent the Middle Ages.” - Georgia Bot. website

There is also a tropical conservatory that you might want to check out as well. Which, I’ve dropped in some details below.

“The Visitor Center/Conservatory features a permanent collection showcasing these diverse crops. Examples include mahogany and bamboo used for furnishings; palms that provide timber, food, fiber, soap, oil, and fuel; and tropical spices used to flavor and preserve our food. Cinnamon, allspice, turmeric, cardamom, ginger, and pepper have been valued for thousands of years and continue to be used worldwide.” – Georgia Bot. website

Here are a selection of snapshots from the gardens to give you an idea of whats there.

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It was a perfect spring day here in North Georgia. The sun was shinning, there was a slight breeze and the temperature was a comfortable 80 degrees. So, the wife and I took a short day-trip to a popular tourist destination in the North Georgia mountains – Helen, Georgia.

This is a quaint little town nestled between the soft, sloping mountains and the gurgling  Chattahoochee River. Originally Helen was a logging town that later fell on hard times, the leadership turned it into a replica of a Bavarian village. It gets a ton during Oktoberfest but, from my experience just about any weekend that its nice, expect traffic.

Because of its location, with only one major road running through town, your going to experience traffic jams much like any beach-front strip. If you’re going to take pictures its great for street photography or possibly something thematic based on the Bavarian theme.

I’ve included a slide show below of some of the photographs I took. I hope you enjoy them!

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Ok, maybe not exactly faking a sunny day. And when I took this series of photographs up at Hurricane Shoals park in Jackson county Georgia, was I really thinking about making them look like its sunny and pleasant outside. Because actually it was rainy, dreary, cold, damp and generally awful outside.

After being faced with another excruciatingly rainy and cold weekend here in North Georgia I decided I was going to take some photographs damn it, even if I had to dodge rain and try to keep my hands from freezing. Some of my photographer friends just hang up their hats when we are at the apex of nasty, cold, rainy and dreary Georgia weather. Which normally runs off and on from late November thru early March.

Myself, I go nuts. I need to take photographs, even if they all suck and I throw them all in my virtual trash can. I still think I learn from doing it. And I can sometimes pick up a few tricks that let me shoot in our nasty winter weather. Thats how I pulled off this trick.

Ok, here is the situation for this particular shoot. Now, I have to say I cheated a little here in regards to being to avoid people in the shot. This is a very popular county park, and if you see this post, you can see what I was dealing with in the past. Soooo….. first it was cold, no one is going to get in a cold river and two, the park was closed that day. So yeah, I’d say I kind of took advantage of no one being around. Accept maybe a few other crazy folks just like me with their cameras. But, we knew how to stay out of each others way.

Fading North Georgia Limited prints for sale thru March.

I started off just playing around with my kit lens, which is pretty good on the Pentax line. Not doing it for me today though. With the rain we’ve been having lately the river is really swollen and I’m not going to get close enough to really get the impact I want with a kit lens. So, I break down and attach my trusty old 200mm manual. Much better, now I can focus in on various aspects of the river and rock features for what I really want to show.

So, here are some before and after shots.

Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -04 Before
Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -03 Before
Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -02 Before

Maybe I took the colors a bit on the extreme side. I don’t know, I sorta like the look.

How did I achieve this effect? Here are the basics.

• I created an HDR (high dynamic range) of the image.
• Open the HDR in my image editing software and apply a custom filter that emulates Fuji Velvia 50 slide film stock. This warms up the image quite a bit.
• Create some custom layers to lighten and darken portions of the image. This is to fake a  hint of directional light.

Thats about it. So, what do you think? Like it? Let me know about any techniques you use on days like this.