This whole trip to the smoky mountains I was experimenting with long exposure photography on the waterfalls to exaggerate the flow of water. I had watched a video on long exposure photography prior to my trip that demonstrated how choppy water can become smooth, people on the street will turn to blurs or eventually vanish so I wanted to try this magical style out for myself. It took me about 38 tries before I was able to get all of the settings right and the sun just happened to shine directly through the clouds onto the bud on the tree by the time I figured it out. The first shot was at 5:03 and the last at 5:45.
This underexposed test shot helped me understand how long I would need to leave the shutter open to get the best exposure, flatten the water and as long as the people were moving enough they too would vanish from the frame.
Almost there! I’ve got the water looking nice and the falls are exposed properly. Now it’s time to get lucky with the sunlight coming in and the activity of the people around to pick up.
Finally! After 42 minutes the wait and effort has finally paid off. This was shot with my 18-55mm lens, a K&F ND filter, aperture f/29, 41mm, ISO 100 and a whopping 100 second exposure time. I was able to set my camera on a tripod and use my iPhone to bluetooth control the manual shutter release. I used Lightroom mobile for editing.