(calming music) - [Announcer] SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world.

And we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(calming music) (water rushing) (birds chirping) (calming music) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, we believe your adventures are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

- [Announcer] Support is provided by Visit Oconee, home of "View Finders" with historic landmarks, parks, and year-round events.

Learn more at visitoconee.com.

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(calming music) (calming music continues) ♪ Is your head coming loose.

♪ ♪ Started thinking that mine is too ♪ ♪ 'Cause when I thought of you ♪ ♪ Supposition started slipping through ♪ ♪ Now when I'm feeling wild ♪ ♪ There's a mountain I'll go for awhile ♪ ♪ And there's nothing to do ♪ ♪ Just watch the clouds roll through ♪ - The salamander capital of the world.

- One of the most ecologically diverse locations in the National Park system.

- The most popular national park in the United States.

- This is Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I'm Chris.

- I'm Paul.

- [Both] And we're the "View Finders" (upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) (upbeat country music continues) ♪ And if I don't come back honey ♪ ♪ Find me by the mountainside ♪ ♪ Looking in the big blue something ♪ ♪ Waiting on the morning light ♪ - Smoky Mountains National Park is beloved by people across the country and really the world.

We see more than 12 million visitors.

We're within a day's drive of half the United States population.

And we see people come here, you know, year after year.

It's very popular with locals.

You know, we have incredible recreational opportunities.

We have over 900 miles of trails.

We have endless opportunities for learning, opportunities for picnicking, camping, backcountry camping.

There's really something for everyone here.

♪ And if I don't come back honey ♪ ♪ Find me by the mountainside ♪ - Have you ever ridden a bike to get a sunrise shot?

- I have before actually.

But the last time I did it, I was on an e-bike.

- Okay.

- And that's obviously not, we were a little spoiled in Acadia.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- The bikes kind of, - [Paul] This is the human engine on this one.

- Yeah, they did all the work and we just were along for the ride, but I think this is gonna be worth it.

It's pretty cool.

Have you been to Cade's Cove before?

- No.

No.

- Okay.

- Not at all.

- So it's a little hilly and it's full of bears.

(upbeat country music) Oh wait, right here.

This way.

Watch out.

(laughs) - You all right?

(bicycle crashing) (upbeat country music) I know in the past I used this road both directions as a leading line, but then also it becomes interesting out in there too.

- Okay.

- And I think with the fog, there could be some shots, especially like with the zoom.

So the light is changing so fast right now and Paul and I are just kind of looking and shooting.

I really like this leading line.

The road is so bright and white 'cause of the gravel that it just pops and there's fog in these trees and there's color and the light is starting to kind of pick up all the textures.

So I've got this really large kind of bush/tree that's dark and it's very heavy and it kind of kills the balance of the scene.

So I'm gonna walk past it and shoot this.

- So I got a little tougher task.

I've never been here before.

This is totally new to me.

And this is like almost in the dark.

So I'm really just trying to understand what's here.

What am I seeing?

What's the camera gonna see?

What's gonna make a good photo?

- Fog comes in, it fills behind the subject and suddenly it comes to life.

It is strong, it stands out, it's pronounced.

So fog equals magic when it comes to landscape photography.

And we're surrounded by it in Cade's Cove in the fall.

So this is really, really good conditions.

I - I mean, there's a lot to work with here.

We got a lot of trees here, got the mountain in the background there.

We got the sun getting ready to come up.

We got some orange and blue in the sky and we got the fog.

But it's just a matter of here are all your ingredients now you have to put them all together to make the pie or make the meal.

(camera clicking) (calming music) (camera clicking) (calming music continues) (calming music continues) - People have been living and working and playing in these mountains for literally thousands of years.

And this park was not created by the federal government.

It was created by a grassroots effort of people who saw that these mountains were really special and they didn't wanna see them destroyed.

They wanted people to continue to be able to enjoy the rivers and to be able to hike some of the most rugged Appalachian mountains in this area.

- I've been a volunteer in the park, this national park, which is the most visited in the nation, for 56 years.

And I've done the program here at Little Greenbrier School for 35 years.

- [Dana] Well the story of the Smokies is tied so deeply to the story of people.

We stand on the ancestral lands of the Cherokee people who were here for thousands of years.

And there's this rich story also of the Appalachian mountain settlers who carved a life in these mountains.

- I was born and raised in a log cabin and then we moved into town.

So I already knew how to churn butter and how to shear sheep and twist it and spin it into wool.

And the editor of the "Saturday Evening Post" had heard about these old women that lived without electricity and without running water.

And they still lived in their cabin after this beautiful area became a national park.

The Walker sisters, there was four of them that I knew very well.

They survived because they had been taught the most important thing in life.

And that was to love the land (upbeat country music) ♪ On the road in Tennessee ♪ ♪ I was surrounded by fallen trees ♪ ♪ But I saw one standing tall ♪ ♪ And as I looked again, I saw me ♪ (Chris mimicking deer sound) - He's looking at us.

I don't know what I've just said to this deer.

I might have insulted not only her but all of her family and friends.

Oh, there she goes.

Stop.

(Chris mimicking deer sound) Stop, deer, stop.

Paul, why don't you use your deer sounds.

- I have no deer sound whatsoever.

- Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, stop deer.

She was so confused.

She did stop.

That was just one of those just moments that happens.

And the only way those happen is if you just put yourself in the position over and over and over again.

I think it's a decent shot, but I was only shooting at 120th of a second.

So if that deer moved it all, then she probably blurred.

But I'd like to think she was so confused by what I was saying to her.

- Oh she was.

- She was frozen.

- She was.

Frozen in place.

Her little deer brain was contemplating the language that I'm speaking to her and we were able to get the shot.

So pro tip, speak deer if you want them to freeze so that you can get the shot.

- Pro tip, don't do that, don't.

(upbeat country music) (camera clicking) (upbeat country music) (camera clicking) (water trickling) (calming music) - A lot of people don't realize the National Park Service is a special entity of parks and other public lands in that the mission is not only the enjoyment of people, but also to protect resources for future generations.

- Just look at science in general.

It forms the baseline for understanding organisms and you really can't protect things if you don't know about them.

- We are the research partner for the park and our kind of flagship project is called the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory.

We help the park to learn all the species that live here, to catalog every species of insect, plants, fungus, anything that lives here.

And we also want to know more about those species, where they live, how they interact with each other.

And this information helps the park to better protect these species.

- Discover Life in America is a science organization and so people might think that that means that our work is only by and for people who have professional training, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I work a lot with teachers and groups of students to replicate the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in their own school yards or natural areas that are nearby with an app called iNaturalist.

So that is a free app for anyone to use.

It's run by a nonprofit and it will help you identify any living thing that you see out in nature.

♪ I like the moon ♪ ♪ Pulling the waves ♪ ♪ Passing you up in the night ♪ ♪ Coriander and the things that we were ♪ ♪ And Whatever makes you feel right ♪ - When I got out to this spot here, again, it's my first time out here, first time seeing this thing, and immediately you got this leading line taking you right up to this little cozy cabin there.

That's the obvious shot I think, okay?

So I took that shot and what I'm gonna do now is just kind of work the area.

Okay?

There are different compositions I can get.

The leading line doesn't always have to be directly in front of you leading up to your subject.

You can be off to the side with your camera and the leading line could be coming from the side and leading the eye of the viewer up to the cabin or the subject in this matter.

And I'm off to the side there with my camera and tripod and I'm looking at the two trees there and I'm seeing if I can frame the cabin within the two trees.

Sometimes things like that work, sometimes they don't.

But it's just a matter of getting on your feet, walking around, get the obvious shot, show people where you were, but then look around and see what other compositions you can get.

And right now that's the stage I'm in.

I already got the obvious shot, that one's in the can.

And I'm just gonna walk around right now and see if I can get some fall foliage, maybe incorporated in the scene back there and just work it.

That's all we're doing right now.

Just work in this one scene.

(calming music) (camera clicking) ♪ I'll wait out the night in your arms ♪ - Tremont is a nonprofit park partner for great Smoky Mountains National Park.

We're an environmental education center that provides residential programming.

So people come and spend three to five days with us in the national park, living, learning, getting curious, asking questions, maybe starting to find some answers.

It's about helping people find that spark of curiosity and passion in the outdoors.

- Think about like a future world where these kids are adults, you want them to be caring about our land, our waterways, our our national parks.

And to give them these experiences from that kind of younger age, that's a a formative age for like creating your own perspective of yourself in the world.

And if we can convince a fifth grader that the stream here in the national park is special and cool, then maybe they'll think their stream back home is special and cool and they will care about that stream in a way that they might not have otherwise if they hadn't had that chance to see it in such a cool different light.

(upbeat country music) - Look at that.

- It's got some character.

- Yeah, it's definitely got some character.

So I've talked several times about how I like to frame up compositions where I'm not quite sure what's gonna work.

I'm doing it right now and that is just free handing the camera, open up the screen on the back and walk around and find something that I think will work.

- I gotta be honest with you guys, okay?

It does take a lot of energy sometimes to bend down, turn around, lift up a camera, put a camera down, stretch your legs.

If you're feeling a little exhausted after you do some landscape photography, I'm in the same boat with you, okay?

And I work out like almost every day.

So we'll be in misery together, but we'll get the shot together too.

♪ And there I stood ♪ ♪ Ready to fall ♪ - There we go.

(groans) It's fine.

Could be worse, it could be 30 degrees out.

My foot is soaking wet because cameraman Nathan said, "I really want your foot to get wet."

And that's the only reason that just happened.

It was because he manifested that into existence.

I don't even know if this is a good shot after all that.

♪ Fall, fall fall ♪ (upbeat country music) - People often think that we're gonna look in the big river and you can find them along the banks, but not in the middle because the water is just too fast and moving too quickly for them.

But we find a lot of salamanders here.

This is how we're gonna catch our salamanders.

So I'm gonna lift this rock kind of away if you want to kind of get yourself prepped with a bag.

So their skin has to remain moist.

They do an advanced form of osmosis that through a mucus layer of their skin.

But because it's an advanced form of osmosis, it requires wetness, water.

And so that mucus layer has to remain slimy at all times.

So that's why you can find them in like wet leaf litter and moss and that kinda thing.

One of the things we think about is what can they teach us about the land that we find them in, about the stream we find them in.

And these aquatic salamanders breathe through their skin so they're directly absorbing anything and everything that comes into contact with them.

And so when you go into a space and you find these really sensitive, really fragile creatures living and not just living but thriving, like we have a very booming population of them here.

And that is an indication to us that the health of this river, of this land is like good.

That it is something that is providing exactly what the salamander needs.

So as a bioindicator species, by bio being alive in a place, they indicate to us the health of the land and of the stream that we find them in.

(calming music) (calming music continues) (rain pattering) - Okay, so we spotted this scene yesterday.

- As soon as I saw it, I thought there is a picture here.

And so we're back today... - To get a good look, a better look at it and to see if it could make a shot.

And I think it'll work.

- We've had the weather change, we had some rain come through, we've got really nice soft light.

- This is what you expect to see when you come to the Smokies.

- The bridge off in the distance is extremely natural.

It is literally just constructed of fallen trees and nothing else.

- You know, this is wilderness to me.

I'm a city guy, but this is what, you know, I expect to see if I'm thinking of a country scene, a Smoky Mountain scene.

- So it just kind of fits the scene.

It doesn't have this concrete aesthetic to it that just really wouldn't work in the kind of natural splendor of the Smokies.

- This to me is like, this is Smokies, this is the shot you gotta have.

So I'm glad it worked out for us to come back here and take this shot.

(camera clicking) (calming music) (camera clicking) (calming music continues) (calming music continues) (water rushing) (calming music continues) (calming music continues) (calming music continues) - A lot of people come to great Smokey Mountains National Park with a very short checklist in mind that they think is going to give them the full park experience.

And you can certainly have a wonderful trip to great Smokey Mountains National Park if you're only focusing on seeing a bear and visiting a waterfall.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But what's really special about the Smokies is how much there is beyond that.

- It's challenging to describe the magic that is the Smokies.

There are just endless opportunities for wonder, for learning, for challenging yourself on a trail.

- The Smokies brings out that love of nature, that love of being part of this particular world that's so beautiful and we love to share it with so many people.

- And no matter how long you've been here, there's a sense of coming home when you're in the Smokies and you're in one of these deep mountain valleys or along one of the rushing streams.

And that mist of the Smokies, the smoke of the Smokies starts to envelop these deep valleys.

- Having the opportunity to work here and play here and live here and explore, I see that there's so much here that is very similar to what I experienced in my childhood.

So I love like seeing kids and adults like come have that experience.

(calming music) (birds chirping) - I always love just coming across a spot that you don't see online, nobody told you about.

It's not just kind of predestined.

And Paul and I were actually in search of an old cabin up this road.

We didn't really find that 'cause they had actually renovated it and it's a very nice cabin now.

But we did find this stream coming down.

It's got this old fallen hemlock tree across it.

Paul's down below with the composition, I'm up here.

But once you turn the polarizer, it literally just comes to life.

And that's what I'm doing here.

I'm polarizing the shot.

It's rich, rich color, beautiful, beautiful scene.

And it is so peaceful.

There's nobody else around.

We haven't seen a soul.

One of the busiest weekends in the Smokies, but yet we have it all to ourselves.

So it's magic.

- So I'm in the basement down here and the reason why I chose to come down here first is because when I can, I like to shoot a waterfall or a stream or something like this at its level.

So it kind of gives me a better perspective of the picture than either looking down or looking up.

And I'm gonna try this shot here where I have a lot of these leaves in my foreground and the water's gonna lead me right up and through across that little log there and up through the passage and into the foliage that's up in the back.

(water rushing) (calming music) (frog croaking) (calming music) - I just had this moment of just pure relaxation and almost like a blissful feeling.

I was walking around shooting a little footage and it was just the sound of the stream, the sound of the leaves kind of falling through the trees like a distant crow and nothing else.

And it's just this magic that you get in the Appalachians.

Sometimes you have those moments in life where you just feel completely in the moment and at peace.

And that's how I've felt here in this spot.

(calming music) (camera clicking) (calming music continues) (camera clicking) - Chris, that was good.

That was good.

- It was really good, man.

- And looking at the conditions that we shot in on a couple of days, I mean, it was worked out.

- We had a range of conditions.

Most of the time you would think, "Oh, here comes rain, this isn't what we want."

It saved us.

It brought the color, it brought the saturation, it brought a day of just awesome photography in a whole lot of different places.

(sighs) It was so good.

- I tell you what, this was probably better than I thought it would be.

And I did think it was gonna be good.

But like we said, I've never been in here before as a photographer and you kind of show me the ropes in this place.

And I think I found some shots that I joke around with the people every now and then and talk about your doctor's office kind of shot.

But I got some shots that I think could be hanging in a doctor's office, you know?

(laughs) - Yeah, no, I got a variety.

I think I got some portfolio shots.

The color was popping.

We did a lot of stream stuff.

We went to Cade' Cove, didn't get eaten by a bear.

Realized how out shape we are.

(laughs) Tell me if you agree with this or not.

If you wanna know what type of physical shape you're in, just ride a bicycle up the hill once.

- Once, yeah.

- One time.

- We found out quick.

- If you feel like you're about to have a heart attack, then you need to do more cardio.

And I need to do more cardio.

- I will say one thing I did learn on this shoot is if we do decide to come back to the Smokies, I'm bringing my waders because they're just some shots that you have to be in the water to get that shot.

I mean, it doesn't work just standing and trying to finagle your way around wet rocks and stuff like that.

I mean, just get in the water, get close to the water and just get the shot.

- We had the conditions, we had the setting, we had the great spots.

And also we hit some like tucked away ones where we didn't see a soul.

As crowded as this place can be on the weekend in the fall and like didn't see a soul, so how nice was that?

- Yeah, perfect.

- That was nice.

All right, man.

Well, we've got more places to go.

- Onto the next one, man.

- Onto the next one.

(calming music) (calming music continues) (calming music continues) (upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) ♪ Though we wandered chasing still ♪ (upbeat country music continues) ♪ Still we wander chasing life ♪ ♪ Still we wander chasing life ♪ (upbeat country music continues) (no audio) (calming music) - [Announcer] SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world.

And we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(calming music) (water rushing) (birds chirping) (calming music) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, we believe your adventures are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

- [Announcer] Support is provided by Visit Oconee, home of "View Finders" with historic landmarks, parks, and year-round events.

Learn more at visitoconee.com.

- [Announcer] Troncalli Subaru is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

(upbeat music)