Rock City - Fairyland Caverns

As part of our Chattanooga honeymoon / flu-a-thon, we decided to brave the cold and visit Rock City. Favorite part? Fairyland Caverns. Ok, that's the only part that's not out in the cold, but you can't find this stuff just anywhere either. For those unfamiliar with this land of fairy magic, Fairyland Caverns is a series of caves filled with blacklights and painted statues depicting childhood stories. Sounds nice? Judge for yourself.







As photography goes, this was tricky. To get anything at all, I had to go ISO 1600 and use my 50mm prime at f-1.4. That gave me the minimal depth of field I was looking for, and enough light to capture the scene. It was challenging to nail the focus on the intended subject while framing it the way I wanted. For example, I wanted to focus on the Farmer's Wife, with the Three Blind Mice out of focus in the foreground. Luckily, it is a very magical place, which I think helped a lot.

PS: The last image is of the dinner table at the home of Jack Sprat. You're welcome for that one.

Chattanooga Part I

On a birthday/honeymoon trip to Chattanooga Jon and I were struggling with a bit of illness we found out later was H1N1 for him and a nasty head cold for myself. In order to still make the best of things and avoid the cold we paid a visit to the aquarium. It's a challenge shooting in such dark conditions, especially when you're dealing with constantly moving targets. It was quite the test.





You won't see me set my ISO over 200 very often when I'm shooting on the digital. After 10 minutes or so of blurry disappointing shots, I had a bit of a "rip the band-aid right off" moment. I made the jump straight to 1600. You just have to live with the noise sometimes, I'm just glad Jon didn't rub my nose in it.

The newly weds hit up the newly iced lake

Jon and I attempted to brave 15 degree weather out at the lake. We lasted about an hour before my lens got frosty. At least I got to try out the new 60mm 2.8 lens, and oh kids, she's a beauty!