Sunrise in the Smokies #2 - a photo on Flickriver

Near Laurel Falls Trailhead
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN
06-06-25
135mm

I'm sort of spoiled living near the Palos Verdes Peninsula where I can photograph both sunsets AND sunrises over a body of water, and as I'm sure you know if you've been following my photography for a while, that I get up quite early and am wont to be down on the beach at sunrise seeing what sights I can capture, and hoping for that magical mix of a partially cloud covered but definitely sharp edged sun disc rising above the waves.

In the mountains, the sunrise is completely different. It's brightening up when the sun finally ekes it's existence out of the clouds, it has already risen up the other side of the mountain peaks on which I'm aiming the camera, and sometimes the light uncovers vast areas of forested land in different shades of light and shadow.

On my first morning in the Smokies, I headed toward Newfound Gap, a really popular turnout and trailhead about an hour drive into the park from my hotel. So it was dark when I left. I didn't know the area, and I arrived to catch the sunrise only to find that it rose behind a mountain really close to the turnout, so capturing the kind of sunrise I wanted to get was impossible. Not a good sunrise spot at all. Those websites, videos and AI assisted queries were wrong.

Oh well.

The next morning, I was going in another direction to photograph Cade's Cove. I wasn't expecting anything magnificent. I just hoped to find a turnout facing the east with an unfettered view of the sky. I was lucky. Not 20 minutes into the drive from the hotel, I saw a perfect photo op, stopped the car, waited about 15-20 minutes and got the sun as it first appeared, a mere sliver of light, and then got larger and rounder as it rose up into and through the clouds, bathing the whole landscape in golden light.

My "planned" sunrise shots never appeared. This one was captured by chance.

I noted the zoom setting in the description after the title (134mm) because this is a zoom shot. The sun wasn't this large to the naked eye. The foliage in the foreground are not bushes but the tops of trees about 100 yards from where I was standing.

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Taken in: United States / Tennessee / Chalet Village (show map)

Taken on: June 6, 2025

Tags:

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Tennessee

sunrise

sun

clouds

golden « less

Sets appears in: • Great Smoky Mountains 06.05-06.25

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Camera: Canon EOS R5, f/7.1, 1/320 sec, 134mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS R5
Lens:	RF24-240mm F4-6.3 IS USM
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/320)
Focal Length:	134mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto bracket
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 26.8 (20250528.m.3090 a82ee58) (Windows)
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