Heavenly Light

Located just 260 miles from my home, Shenandoah National Park is a fantastic place to visit. In particular, the 105 miles long and narrow Skyline Drive that runs along the Blue Ridge mountains, offer you some of the most spectacular mountain landscape in the world. Many visitors travel exclusively by driving, as the highway itself is the park, and it is often associated with deer and black bear sighting along the way! We spotted 3 black bears and countless of dears in this trip.

We found this fantastic viewpoint after some driving and decided to stay for the sunset photography. While enjoying the majestic landscape and preparing the gear, a cloud was passing over the sun and the light rays piercing through it, creating the mix of warm and cool tints on the invading mist. All these combined created a magical moment - one of the most charming moment imprinted in my mind and my camera "mind".

Colorful Shenandoah

Dawn at Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park is best known for its spectacular mountain landscape. The ever-changing mountain landscape is attribute primarily to the changes of light throughout the day. The golden hour (before and after sunrise/sunset) is one of the best times to photograph the mountain landscape. Typically, dawn casts a cooler (blue) light and dusk casts a warm (red) light. The cool or warm light spread across the mountain is beautiful and the scene look fantastic.

Dusk at Shenandoah National Park

Sometimes, the light might be very different and complex due to the weather and atmospheric condition, e.g. cloud, fog, mist, and haze. Therefore, it might be warm at dawn and cool at dusk. These elements not only contribute to the changes of light and color, but also give a wonderfully moody feel to your picture. Moreover, the mixture of warm and cool light may occurred thanks to the interplay between the sunlight and cloud.

Dusk at Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park is an amazing place! This is the place with full of breathtaking beauty and wonderful landscape! I would love to return here to capture the light in different seasons.

Shenandoah Mountain Landscape

What's the best to see in Shenandoah National Park? For me, perhaps everyone else who ever visited Shenandoah - mountain landscape, waterfall and black bear:)

The 105 miles long and narrow Skyline Drive that runs along the Blue Ridge mountains, offer you one of the most spectacular mountain landscape in the world. Many visitors travel with drive, as the highway itself is the park, and it is often associated with deer and black bear sighting along the way!

Unlike other US national parks, Shenandoah is a place where people lived for over one hundred year before the park was established. Big portion of Shenandoah consisted of farmland and second- or third-growth forests logged since 1700s. Today the forests slowly come back and all these activities are mostly disappeared.

Enjoy the best of Shenandoah National Park! I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Rose River Falls

Shenandoah National Park is home to many beautiful waterfalls. Rose River Loop is one of the most beautiful hikes for cascading waterfalls. The length of Rose River Loop is around 4 miles, but we just hiked for ~1.5 miles to the upper part of the Rose River, and return on the same path. It is a downhill hike, although not very steep, the return trip was a bit of pain. The sunny day made photographing waterfalls a challenge, luckily there are a few clouds flew over when I was ready to take some shots. I also use polarizing filter, which is a great tool to eliminate the reflection on rocks. By the way, there is no bear spotted:) I am not a fan of having intimate contact with bear in the wild:P