Photographs and commentary by Dick Snoke
Some of us from the North Georgia Photography Club visited the trail one chilly windy morning in March. The conditions were not ideal for photography, but the area was lush and colorful. Many Virginia bluebells at the start of the boardwalk, and many more blooms all the way down to the waterfall at the end of the ravine. I took all my gear, and I used almost every piece of it. Access for most of the area is restricted to the boardwalk, so a long telephoto lens is needed to get reasonably close pictures of the flowers. But some blooms are so close to the boardwalk or trail that the macro lens or wide angle lens is required. And everything in between. I ended up using a higher ISO setting than normal in order to use a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the blowing blooms. All in all, a fun, interesting, challenging couple of hours.