About the Image(s)

Location: The Sinks, Little River, along Little River Gorge Road, east of Townsend, TN in the Smoky Mountains National Park.

A quartet of kayakers traveling through whitewater toward "The Sinks". This is a location on the Little River where a deep hole in the riverbed was created when loggers used dynamite to break up a log jam at a bend in the river in the 1930's. The unintended consequence of the over enthusiastic use of dynamite was to cause several massive boulders to fall in the river creating a steep drop as the river passes between the boulders. These kayakers are lining up for an efficient passage past the boulders and through The Sinks. Approximately 60 deaths have been attributed to The Sinks since it was created; the last one was a kayaker in 2022.

In this version of this image, I have minimally cropped it to include as much background as possible to enhance the sense of place. I have entered a tightly cropped B&W version in several international salons, and it has received enough acceptances for me to "retire" it from PSA competition. I also was able to get several other photos of kayakers actually passing through "The Sinks" during this photoshoot. The term "natural whitewater" is used to refer to location on a free-flowing river and not in a whitewater park. This is significant in the cropped version.

Camera & lens: Canon EOS 6D with a Canon EF70-200 mm f4 L lens at 200 mm.

Exposure: Manual exposure: 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 400.

Camera/lens: hand held.

Postprocessing: Photoshop for cropping, and minor brightness and contrast adjustment. Topaz Photo for sharpening.