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Word from the Smokies is an everyday column from Smokies Life, a nonprofit devoted to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Cades Cove named certainly one of USA TODAY’s greatest scenic views
Explore Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, named certainly one of USA TODAY’s Most Treasured Views in America for 2025.
- Photographer Bill Lea focuses on capturing gentle and wildlife within the Great Smoky Mountains.
- Lea transitioned from a forester to a full-time photographer after falling in love with wildlife pictures.
- He is especially identified for his intimate pictures of black bears within the park.
Bill Lea says he’s not a morning particular person. Yet many days, he’s up earlier than the solar, hurrying towards the western portion of Foothills Parkway to catch its first rays as they gentle up Rich Mountain and swathe Townsend in golden beams.
“This is what I love doing: chasing the light,” Lea says, easing his Subaru into park at certainly one of his favourite overlooks. “All the subjects we shoot, everybody shoots – the only thing that makes the subject different is the light that you capture.”
The day’s forecast requires sunny skies and heat temperatures that can verge on sizzling by afternoon, however the early morning air is chilly. The moon nonetheless hangs giant and milky within the sky, the newly risen solar saturating each crater with illusory heat. Lea units up his digital camera and factors it towards a vista of blooming dogwoods, rising leaves, and lengthy shadows, cautious to shoot so the solar shines at a 90-degree angle to his topic. Side lighting offers depth to the picture, he says, and he plans his morning outings with the dawn’s orientation in thoughts, together with many different elements, equivalent to cloud cowl, humidity and seasonal development. In the background of each shot lies an intimate information of the surrounding landscape.
“That’s why you concentrate on your own backyard,” he says. “Chances are you know it better than anywhere else you can go.”
Reframed alongside the Mississippi
In a method, Lea, now 73, owes his pictures profession to the muddy waters of the Mississippi Delta. An avid fisherman all through his childhood in Illinois and Florida, Lea didn’t count on that inclination to alter after shifting to Vicksburg, Mississippi, the place he landed his first job out of faculty as a forester for the International Paper Company. But he simply couldn’t get used to that murky water.
“One day, I put down the fishing pole, picked up a camera, and fell in love with the adrenaline flow of photographing wildlife,” he stated. “I never looked back.”
That was practically half a century in the past. Since then, Lee has printed a number of photo books and calendars, offered 1000’s of pictures to an array of publications – BBC Wildlife, National Geographic books and National Audubon Society calendars, to call just a few – and develop into extra acquainted than simply about anyone else with the way in which gentle brushes the animals and landscapes of Cades Cove, his favourite place on the planet. Lea first skilled Cades Cove whereas touring along with his spouse Klari shortly after their marriage ceremony in 1975, and he instantly knew it was particular. From then on, Lea filtered each job alternative that got here his method by means of one explicit lens: proximity to the Smokies.
Lea was “never good at wanting to cut trees,” and on the first alternative, he left International Paper for the U.S. Forest Service, touchdown a job with the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas. Then he started in search of positions close to the Smokies. In 1983 Lea moved to Brevard, North Carolina, to work for Pisgah National Forest, and he completed his profession as an interpretive specialist for the National Forests in North Carolina stationed in Franklin, North Carolina, about 45 minutes from the closest park entrance and fewer than three hours from Cades Cove. Now retired, he lives simply 20 minutes away from his favourite spot.
In current years, Lea’s develop into enamored with panorama pictures, however he’s maybe greatest identified for his work with bears and different wildlife, creating iconic photos that supply a window into the on a regular basis lives of those magnificent creatures. Though snapping the shutter takes solely a second, making {a photograph} can take all day.
“So many of my best photos are just pure luck. being at the right place at the right time,” he stated. “But you have to be out there for the luck to occur.”
A change in perspective
Leaving Foothills Parkway, we come again by means of Townsend and switch onto Laurel Creek Road towards Cades Cove. Ordinarily, Lea tells me, he would by no means go to the cove on a transparent, sunny morning like this one. It could also be optimum climate for mountain climbing and biking, however for pictures the lighting circumstances are “very boring.”
He waits for the cloudy days, the wet days, the times the place the air is so humid you may nearly wring it out like a rag. That’s when he drives to the cove, finds a spot to park, and walks by means of the woods, hoping to see a bear. But if he sees one ambling alongside the street, he drives proper by – it upsets him when he sees individuals crowd or disturb these bears, and in addition to, he prefers to painting the animals’ pure habits. That solely occurs after they’re relaxed and cozy.
Lea turned acquainted along with his first black bears in 1993, when a buddy informed him about a spot in northern Minnesota the place he’d be sure you see numerous them. The homestead of a retired logger, the place is now generally known as the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary, which Lea co-founded. He and Klari had deliberate on three days for that first go to however ended up staying two weeks. It was a transformative expertise.
“I guess because bears kind of look alike to the untrained eye, you tend to think that they’re all alike,” he stated. “But they’re individuals as different as every human is different. And so we just came to know them. When each one is such a unique individual, then that gives value to that life, because he or she is one of a kind.”
He introduced that philosophy again to the Smokies.
Focus on the topic bear
When requested whether or not he has any favourite bears, Lea responds that he’s “never met a bear I don’t like” and tells story after story of the animals he’s identified through the years.
One “sweet, easy-going bear” he calls Hazel is the topic of his best-selling print, titled “The Kiss.” Lea started photographing Hazel and her two cubs in spring 2015, however when he returned a pair days later, one of many cubs was lacking. The remaining cub slept in a walnut tree whereas Hazel, nonetheless on the bottom, made a “soft little grunting sound” meant to name her cub right down to her.
“When the cub got to a crotch in the tree, Hazel stood up on her hind feet and the cub leaned down and kissed mom on the nose,” Lea recalled. “Coming from both mom and cub, the feeling was, ‘Oh man, I am so glad I have you,’ because they had lost such an important part of their life, the loss of that other cub. It was just such a special moment.”
Park guidelines require guests to stay at least 50 yards away from wild animals like bears. But bears, like individuals, have differing necessities for private house. Amiable Hazel was all the time completely snug with Lea’s presence at that distance, however a bear he dubbed “Shadow” lay on the different finish of the spectrum.
“Shadow was not an easy-going bear,” Lea stated. “She was uptight, and man, you could be much more than 50 yards away from her, and she’d still give you the eye.”
Over the years, Lea has realized easy methods to talk his non-threatening intentions to the bears he encounters.
“Just like a dog, a bear can tell a lot about your intentions through your tone of voice, and predators don’t announce their presence,” he stated. “They know you’re there, so if you want the bear to relax and exhibit natural behavior, talking to them eases any potential tension.”
Lea’s love for bears ultimately grew to rival his love for pictures. He’s develop into their advocate, utilizing the scientific and experiential information he’s collected to conduct academic talks and seem on networks and applications together with Dateline NBC, National Public Radio and Animal Planet.
“We tend to fear what we don’t understand,” Lea stated. “And once people have a chance to know what bears are really like, it changes their whole perspective.”
This story was initially printed within the spring 2026 challenge of Smokies Life Journal, a twice-yearly journal that’s the main good thing about becoming a member of Smokies Life. To learn extra tales like this whereas supporting Great Smoky Mountains National Park, go to SmokiesLife.org/Membership and develop into a Park Keeper. For extra of Lea’s work, go to BillLea.com. His latest picture e book, “Great Smoky Mountains: Memories of Mystic Mountain Moods,” might be printed this summer time. For buying info, contact him at BillLea.com/contact.
Holly Kays is the lead author for the 29,000-member Smokies Life, a nonprofit devoted to supporting the scientific, historic, and interpretive actions of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by offering academic services and products equivalent to this column. Learn extra at SmokiesLife.org, or attain the creator at [email protected].
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/life/2026/05/28/great-smoky-mountains-national-park-photographer-bill-lea-bears-cades-cove/90253704007/
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