Avent Cabin, near Jakes Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, June 2016.  Built around 1850 this single-room cabin was purchased in 1918 by Frank Avent, husband of Mayna Trainer, a noted painter.  She began using it as her studio in 1919 and continued for the next 20 years. South-facing windows and a small kitchen were added.  Mayna Trainer studied painting at the Academie Julian in Paris, France.  The Avent Cabin is on the National Register of Historic Places. This picture won Best Photograph by an Arts & Cultural Alliance Member in the 2018 National Juried Exhibition judged by noted photographer Baldwin Lee.

Fire and smoke. Near False Gap Prong, GSMNP 2016. Bushwhack hiking in the Smokies, my brother-in-law and I started smelling smoke and headed back to our car. It was November 23, 2016.  At 2:27 PM I made a quick “grab shot” of fall color in a background of gray tree trunks filled in with gray smoke from a fire.  At 5:30 PM GSMNP staff responded to 1.5-acre fire six miles away at Chimney Tops.  Over the next five days 14 lives were lost, and numerous homes and buildings were destroyed.  This is that grab shot.  In 2017, the picture was exhibited and sold at the Art at the Airport exhibit, at McGhee-Tyson Airport, Knoxville, TN.

I started hiking in the Smokies around 1967. Around 2010, I began off-trail hiking using GPS and early maps to locate old roads, home sites/chimneys, railroads and artifacts. Recently I’ve focused on photographing streams and wildlife.

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