Small Wonders: Nature Pictures – The Cliffs

 Story by Sandy Lang

“It’s kind of amazing when you sit quietly in the morning,” says Laurie Metzger, who likes to wake early sufficient to be on her dock on Lake Keowee earlier than the solar rises. “I walk down to the dock with my coffee and my dog, and I watch these amazing sunrises.”

She and her husband constructed their residence on the water with a large southeastern view, so she has an particularly good vantage level for observing—a lone fisherman, scullers rowing, a heron fishing, otters, beavers, and foxes.

The surroundings at The Cliffs at Keowee Falls captivates Metzger, who notes that there’s an particularly stunning high quality to the sunshine on the lake occurring about thirty minutes earlier than full daylight. She began bringing her digicam to the dock to attempt to seize it. From the primary picture, she was hooked. Before shifting her focus to parenting throughout her son’s and daughter’s childhood, Metzger labored in banking after which as an industrial photographer and a portrait photographer. The lake pictures had been her first foray into panorama and waterscape images.

Metzger photographed Lake Keowee pre-dawn on greater than 450 days throughout the pandemic. In these uncommon occasions, it was a manner “to try to find the beauty in the world,” she remembers. And she shared her images, posting every day pictures to social media. That led to gross sales and gallery showings—she’s now a member of the Art Gallery on Pendleton Square. Her ardour for images continues, and he or she says native hikes are a supply of inspiration. Metzger is a co-leader of a mountain climbing group at Keowee Falls, with outings on Tuesdays from fall to spring. Through these hikes, she’s found different areas for her early-morning images.

“I’ll get up before dawn and head to a location and wait for the sun to come up,” she explains. Several of her favourite spots are alongside mountain climbing trails that she will stroll to from residence. Or she’ll drive to an overlook on the way in which to Cashiers, towards Sassafras Mountain, Pretty Place, or Table Rock. Once her Sony digicam is securely on the tripod and he or she’s framed the shot, she says she’ll usually go away the shutter open for lengthy exposures—5 to twenty seconds. “That really enriches the colors, and if there’s water, it makes the surface glass-like.”

Metzger says she’s repeatedly scanning the horizon for picture topics. “I keep my camera in my car,” she notes, recalling a latest drive when she stopped at a cotton discipline and photographed the rows. “I probably hung out for a half hour.” 

She prefers to print the pictures in bigger sizes, usually starting from 30×45 as much as six toes broad. Most are bought by people for his or her partitions at residence, however she donates work to the Cliffs Residents Outreach annual public sale and has {a photograph} hanging within the Keowee Falls Clubhouse. The topic of that print is the view from Pounding Mill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Metzger says she arrived that day to “a low-lying fog, so it’s a very ethereal scene.” And she captured it throughout these magical minutes she loves, simply earlier than dawn.

This story was featured in Cliffs Living journal. To see extra tales like this one and be taught extra about The Cliffs, subscribe right here.