I’m now parked in Townsend, TN near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains. I’ll be teaching a week-long workshop here with Charlie Borland and Marv Miller (yes, the same Marv that joined me in Iceland last month).

I shot the photo above this morning while scouting for shooting locations. It’s an old blacksmiths shop. It was so dark in this log cabin that other photographers where shaking their heads thinking that I wouldn’t get anything usable. Feel free to click on the images to see a larger version. This is a five shot HDR image that has three tone mapping settings stacked and masked to control where they affect the image. For more about how I process HDR files, check out my new on-line class.

Uploading this post was very painful. My internet connection suddenly slowed down earlier today and it’s gotten to the point that it’s almost not useful anymore. Take at look at the image below to get an idea of just how slow my connection is. I also don’t have a cell signal in this area, so I think I’ll concentrate on taking photos and having a good time while I ignore the rest of the world.