3 Days in The Blue Ridge Mountains - A Landscape Photography Trip Fall 2025
- Paul Farace
- Nov 23
- 4 min read
Ive' been putting this blog post off for too long! I finally got enough time today to put it together and share. I had an amazing landscape photography trip to shoot fall landscape photography in the Blue Ridge Mountains last month in October and wanted to share the images with you all.
Lets get into it! In a last minute effort I packed the Yamper (a converted Toyota Yaris into a mini camper) and headed north . I spent 3 days wandering around from overlook to waterfall and spent a few nights in the Pisgah National Forest campground as my home base.
I drove straight from St. Augustine Florida to the Blue Ridge Parkway in about 7 and a half hours. I was going to stop about an hour out to sleep overnight, but once I arrived to the Cracker Barrel parking lot I decided to just keep going and arrive to the parkway a bit late. I got to the Cold Mountain overlook at about 10pm, had a quick dinner, set my alarm for 5:30 AM and went to sleep.
DAY 1 Morning came I quickly rushed to find a better positioned overlook for sunrise. I had never been here to explore so all these spots were new to me. I quickly found a great scene at Funnel View Overlook. With slight cloud cover I wasn't sure if we would get much of a sunrise, but just enough space cleared to give us an amazing one.
As the sun began to rise I captured my first shot.
Once the sun had risen a bit more I took this four horizontal panoramic wide scene to capture sun washing over the landscape.
After sunrise I went for a hike into Moore Cove Falls to photograph the waterfall during the remaining morning light. The water was not flowing very much so I focused in closer on the water and background sections. After a while we had a rainbow show up which made for a another cool element to blend in with the waterfall.
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Finally to round out the day and shoot sunset I visited Hominy Valley Overlook. This was a great view overlooking all of the beautiful fall colors being lit by the golden sunset set against the classic blue tones.
DAY 2
Day two brought another amazing sunrise, but this time we had clear skies with a bit of atmosphere in the valley. Just enough to catch the sun washing through and create those classic mountain layers.
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For the rest of the morning and day I wandered from overlook to overlook and all through the forest. Here is a collection of photos from various locations during the remainder of the day. A beautiful time to visit!
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With the afternoon quickly approaching I turned my interest to the next waterfall. I attempted to get a shot of Looking Glass Falls. This waterfall is right off the side of the road so it comes with plenty of company. I had to wait a little over an hour before I could get a photo of the full scene with no people in my frame. This was a busy spot!
The light wasn't quite right and I didnt love the full shots, but we did end up getting another rainbow in the falls. So I zoomed in to get a few close ups of the falls and rainbow. I tried two different shutter speeds to create the two different looks below. I think I like the right one best.
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After visiting Looking Glass Falls I headed back to a spot I quickly stopped by the day before called Graveyard Fields. I wanted to hike in and see if I could find a waterfall located along the hike (2 actually, Upper and Lower Falls). I did end up finding the waterfall after a long hike, but I found the top! Somehow I ended up hiking to the totally wrong location. Even so I took a photo from the top and it still came out pretty cool. I ended up really liking this one.
DAY 3
My final day on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I mostly shot sunrise and a couple hours after before packing up for the long drive home. I started the day at Pounding Mill Overlook. An amazing overlook that gives you a huge sweeping view for sunrise.
I had an AMAZING time up on the Blue Ridge Parkway this year and I can't wait to get back up next year armed with a bit more local knowledge. If you ever get the chance to take the drive during mid to late October do not pass it up. I hope you enjoyed the photos! Until next time! - Paul Farace
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