View Finders

(pleasant music) SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world, and we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(pleasant music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "View Finders" is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(pleasant music) - [Announcer] Here at United Community Bank, we are committed to doing the little things to earn customer trust, one customer at a time.

United Community Bank is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

- [Announcer] Take your career to the next level.

With online courses and flexible class schedules, the Graduate School at Georgia College & State University is an affordable way to earn the degree that will accelerate your career.

Learn more at gcsu.edu/graduate.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Over 500,000 acres of creeks, woodlands, and mountains.

- Home to the oldest forestry school in the US.

- The first national forest in the Eastern US.

This is Pisgah National Forest.

I'm Chris.

- I'm Paul.

- [Both] And we're the View Finders.

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) (no audio) (gentle guitar music) Laying in the leaves out in the yard Countin' on both hands all the colors that there are Thinking about all the time that's passed I hope you know I'd still do anything to make this last (gentle guitar music continues) - Pisgah is- - Beautiful.

- Beautiful.

- Yeah.

- It's like an outdoor lover's paradise.

I've been here before.

I've never been here with just, like, time to just take pictures, so I'm really excited about this episode.

- [Paul] Yeah, I can say the same.

- Yeah, and there's so many waterfalls.

The thing about Pisgah, it's like, there's so much to do.

Like, there's the hiking, there's the fishing, there's the kayaking, and paddle, I mean, there's just so much.

And so, we could probably spend many, many episodes just on Pisgah.

- You wanna do it?

- I do.

(both laughing) I don't have the time for it, but I wanna do it.

So, I'm thinking, you know, we talked about this.

We both love waterfalls.

- Mm-hmm.

- And Pisgah's got a bunch.

So, what do you think?

I think that should be our focus.

- I say a marathon of waterfalls.

- [Chris] Just hit 'em, right?

- [Paul] One after the other.

- One after another, just see what they offer.

Cross our fingers for good light.

It's rained a fair amount recently, so I think the flow's gonna be pretty good at most of the places.

But, I love taking pictures of waterfalls, and there's just so many.

It's gonna be fun to explore, and find some maybe hidden gems, also maybe hit some of the icons that so many people have heard of.

- 'Cause I've heard some things about a few of the falls here, and I'm kinda anxious to hit up some of 'em.

- Yeah.

- So, yeah.

Let's see if they live up to the hype.

- [Chris] What are you thinking about with the waterfalls?

I mean, I know you like to photograph 'em.

What about here in Pisgah, what are you thinking?

- Pisgah, like you, I've seen some online.

I'd like to see 'em in person to see if the online personality matches what I'm gonna see in person.

- Yeah.

- I don't wanna see too many people out there, keep our fingers crossed on that, and yeah, hope for the good weather.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- [Paul] And see what happens.

- [Chris] I think if we get up early, hit 'em like at first light, that'll be pretty good.

If we do some in the middle of the day, we just don't know, because it's gonna be bright sun.

- Usually not a good time to shoot waterfalls, yeah.

- Not so good, but if we're gonna do a marathon, and we have a limited time that we're here.

- Yeah.

(Paul chuckles) - We're gonna be doing some in the middle of the day, so we'll cross our fingers that we get some good light, but overall, I'm just really excited to be here.

I mean, just looking around this scene.

- Yeah.

- It's beautiful.

It's so relaxing.

- [Paul] Yeah, really pretty out here.

- Gorgeous Appalachians everywhere, we're at high elevation, and there's so many waterfalls for us to hit up.

- Yeah.

- And, let's stop talking about 'em.

- Let's just go.

- Let's start doing it, right?

- Yeah.

- Make it happen.

- All right, man.

(gentle guitar music) - So my background is in aquatic ecology, and specifically, I look at water quality, and how that relates to biodiversity, aquatic biodiversity, fish, and aquatic insects.

If you look under the surface of the water, there's so much life that we just never see.

And a lot of those are very good indicators of what's happened in the past, and even what's happening today, upstream in these watersheds.

We are doing a fish and aquatic insect survey to look at its diversity, and based on that diversity and the composition of those two communities, how we can calculate how healthy the stream is.

- So the ecology and biodiversity of Western North Carolina is really amazing, and the most impressive thing about the area to me.

And there's just a huge number of things that live here and only here, and I think a lot of it has to do, well, there's a lot of things that it has to do with, but, I mean, part of it just has to do with the diversity of habitats, but also the seasonality.

We've got four really distinct seasons here in Western North Carolina.

You compile that on top of all the mountains, all the moisture that we have, and you just have a lot of diversity.

And a lot of diversity means you got a lot of things doing a lot of amazing things.

Tailgate on my truck was out Oh quarry is so deep And that dress you got on leaves much To mystery I ain't been around a while Yeah by 1998 We can hug those lookout mountain curves Until it's late Yeah 'cause you've changed a little I've changed a lot I ain't asking for no problems see You was just a shot Why were you both here, no one really knows Well I reckon That's how the wind blows - So this is Moore's Cove Falls, and the unique feature about this is the kind of grotto that's behind the water.

It's pretty rare that you can walk behind a waterfall without getting soaking wet.

The flow isn't real heavy, which I guess is pretty typical here.

It's kind of funny, Paul and I were just talking about shutter speeds, and waterfalls, and how we usually don't go anything past a second.

But in this particular case, I'm probably gonna experiment with longer shutter speeds to allow more water to fall through the frame, and maybe kind of thicken things up a little.

We'll see how it looks.

- Yeah, I see one that kind of immediately suggests itself.

That one right there with the little stones in the foreground.

- Okay.

- But I like the flowers on the back here.

I don't know if there's anywhere to go there, and have those in the foreground, and that in the background.

I'll be honest with you, looking behind the fall?

- Yeah.

- I'm not that impressed.

I don't know what can happen from back there.

- Yeah.

- But, I'm willing to check it out and see.

- Even shooting these flowers through that water, like, what will that do?

I don't know.

Like, it could just be a total bust, but we got it to ourselves.

We got a lot of time.

The light's good, very flat.

So I guess this is gonna be a lot of experimentation, really.

- Yeah.

- Which is kind of fun.

- Yeah.

- It's different.

- We'll just scout the area out, see what we got.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, let's go man.

- Yeah.

Talking about where we wanna go Where are all the colors God it kills me not to know But if there's one thing I can say It's that I want you with me Every step of the way I'm not sure of just about anything else In my time here on this earth I'd walk the length of every country and mountain To meet you in my life I'm not sure of just about anything else In my time here on this earth I'd walk the length of every - You've probably heard the saying, we all live downstream, right?

So whatever's happening upstream of us today could have an effect on our drinking water, our recreation, all other uses of water that we have.

And this stream, Scott Creek, flows into the Tuckasegee River, which flows into the Little Tennessee River which eventually makes its way to the Tennessee River, and then the Ohio River, Mississippi, and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.

So that is a lot of people connected by these waterways.

So, I do feel that water is that thread that connects our society, and maintaining its health is important for all of us, and for all of the organisms that rely on it.

Almost all of the animals that are in our ecosystems rely on healthy, clean water.

(gentle guitar music) (gentle guitar music continues) Hey, I heard that you're moving away It makes me sad to hear, but that's okay In my perfect paradise I've got all my friends And the older that I get The easier I pretend - I'm trying, at this point, to get like the grand scale of the waterfall.

Trying to put together a composition that kind of leads people into this.

But, I just don't like the elements I have in the front here.

And I'm not really thrilled about this total composition here.

I may have to move off somewhere else, and that tree in the middle looks like it fell from a storm, or something like that.

That's really kind of killing the image.

- This is a gorgeous waterfall, but I'm finding it a challenge to get a good photo.

The first and biggest challenge is, very recently, a tree has fallen across it.

It's still got green leaves, so it's happened very recently, and it just kind of kills the feel.

It creates a big distraction for the viewer's eye.

And so, what I'm trying to do now is find some compositions where that tree is not a part of it.

So who am I to ask you that you stay The innocence we lost was no mistake - Hey Paul, come check this out.

I think this is a better waterfall.

Got to taste the dirt before you can relate Remember when you caught me - Yeah, it's a lot better than the other one.

It's a little easier, on account of the composition.

You got more elements in here.

Almost like two falls, if you want to break it down.

We'd live forever Maybe in a year, I'll take a trip Don't care if I'm broke I'll take the hit - People come to Western North Carolina, they go to the waterfalls, and the streams, and sometimes you superficially see how beautiful that they are, but when we look, and start taking a deeper look, there's lots of little types of habitats associated with waterfalls and the streams.

You know, there's obviously the beautiful cascading waterfalls, but there's also the spray that comes off of that, and hits the cliffs.

And those spray cliffs have their own sort of unique biodiversity, and things that live only on them.

And then we start looking at the creek, and we see fallen logs across the creek, and we see ripples, we see little pools, and each one of those areas has something unique going on.

It's a unique different kind of habitat.

And that's one of the reasons why the the Southern Appalachians has one of the highest diversities of aquatic insects in all of the continent of North America.

It's a really special place.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Tough to shoot, tough composition, very tall.

- This is a challenge.

- Yeah.

- Nothing is kind of standing out to me right now, like as the shot, or the composition.

We're so, it's so steep, and the flow is really low.

So we're just kind of right up on it.

We can't get far enough away to get, maybe- - [Paul] There's really only one way to shoot it, and that's like, from here.

- Yeah, it's like straight up.

- Yeah.

(camera clicks) (gentle music continues) - My wife and I go hiking virtually every weekend, and sometimes during the week as well, and waterfalls, of course, are some of the highlights for us.

And why we gravitate to those is there's something about the soundscape that they produce.

That sort of white noise is somehow weirdly comforting in some kind of way.

Also, the temperature changes as you sort of drop down next to a waterfall.

And then, also for us, we're biology nerds, and it's like all of the life that's associated with those waterfalls, of like, being in that sort of white noise environment, it's nice and cool, and then at the same time, we get to see all these cool things.

- So, another reason why folks come to Western North Carolina is to view waterfalls.

And myself included, we like to hike, and there are some spectacular trails that lead to amazing waterfalls.

They also are a part of this natural topography, and actually contribute to the health of these streams.

All the white water that you see in waterfalls, and these cascades behind us, what they're doing is interacting with air, and actually infusing water with dissolved oxygen, which fish and aquatic insects need, just like us, to breathe.

But there's much less of it in water.

So without those waterfalls, without those cascades, the dissolved oxygen that's present would not be as high as it is.

And a lot of those species wouldn't be capable of living here.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - So, when I think of Pisgah, I think waterfalls.

There's a lot of 'em in the Pisgah National Forest, and this is probably one of the most famous ones.

- I can see why.

- [Chris] Yeah, it's really flowing nice.

There's not another soul here, which is nice.

- [Paul] Thanks to getting here early.

- Rare, yeah we got up early to make this happen.

So we're fortunate we kind of have it to ourselves, but yeah, Looking Glass Falls, it's just got that look, and it's so accessible, like even from where we parked, looking down.

It was pretty from up there, you know?

- Yep.

- What do you think?

How are you gonna approach it?

- [Paul] I got a couple of different looks.

I kind of like that green look contrast with the white waterfall.

- Yeah.

- And then the brown bricks in the back, and I got it from a couple of different locations.

Up here, up top, and then down below.

Just can't get too close, because with a lot of the mist coming off of the rocks.

- There's a bit of a spray.

- Yeah.

- I guess while the light's good, let's see what we can do here.

- Yeah.

- All right, let's make it happen.

- All right.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (camera clicks) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Paul, Pisgah, man...it was...

Ten!

Ten!

Five stars out of five It was so good.

(laughs) It wins.

Yes.

It wins.

I mean, wed heard about it.

- [Paul] Yeah.

We knew it was gonna be beautiful.

Its a famous forest.

Ah, and its famous for a lot of things, but we focused on the waterfalls We saw a lot of them.

- [Paul] Yes, we sure did.

There was a variety, there were some pretty big ones with a high flow.

- [Paul] and some with a not so Not so good, you know...

I mean, we tried to make do with that we had, but - [Paul] Its part of the game.

(It is.)

Yeah.

Absolutely, and the other thing is, theres just so many.

And weve only hit a small section.

- [Paul] Yeah.

Like, theres, Like, we could do multiple episodes - [Paul And I know were going to hear it.

Were gonna hear you missed this one, or I know about this one, - [Chris] Yes.

- [Paul] Its coming.

It got about 600 I gotta look through right now, so, - [Chris] Oh man, thats insane.

- [Paul] Yeah...

When theyre looking good on the back of my camera, Im thinking Ive got some good ones.

- [Paul] Yeah, cuz its gonna look better once you see it on the monitor so, - [Chris] Absolutely, and work through it and everything, so, Ah, I dont know about you, but, Im ready to hit the road, check out what we got, get some food, and well be back here, for sure.

- [Paul] Lets go, man.

- [Chris] Lets do it, man.

Hollows in the woods call out Trails up mountains climb Waves and sand keep beat and time Mossy blankets, swirl and streams Over rocks and dirt Run at pace with all the earth Could we capture nature's wonder Find our way to geting lost Freeze a frame to save forever Adventure worth the cost Bees and dandelion grain Dance in sun-soaked fields Wind and gleam together yield Pocket worries fade to dim Wait on focus new Wild is coming in to view (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (pleasant music) SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world, and we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(pleasant music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "View Finders" is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(pleasant music) - [Announcer] Here at United Community Bank, we are committed to doing the little things to earn customer trust, one customer at a time.

United Community Bank is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

- [Announcer] Take your career to the next level.

With online courses and flexible class schedules, the Graduate School at Georgia College & State University is an affordable way to earn the degree that will accelerate your career.

Learn more at gcsu.edu/graduate.