It's Monday morning and the beginning of July. I have been up for over an hour, had a shower, and have my coffee made so far, so good. I'm writing this as I wait for Wes to drive up. Today is the first official shoot of Throat Punch Productions and I am excited. We are shooting a product that you will know more about soon if you follow us. If not well, your loss. As I sit here considering what and how to shoot today, I also finished pictures from a hike my family and I have been trying to do for months, Grayson Highlands, VA. I have always heard how beautiful it is, and how unique it is seeing as how its inhabited by wild ponies. After many failed attempts to make it, last Saturday was our day. We loaded up the kids after breakfast at home, and planned our route to have lunch prior to hiking. We found a great gas station/ dinner just a few miles from the entrance to the park. We filled up on double bacon cheeseburgers, chicken salad, corn dogs and fries. FUEL. Then we were ready. I will plan better on our next trip as we didn't get to see many ponies, other than the ones walking by the side of the road on our way out and the lighting was not ideal for the photographer inside me. Nevertheless, it was a pretty amazing day with those I adore. Jaryn almost died, because as much as I love that child, he's hella clumsy. I watched in slow motion as he bounded from one rock to the next, where he lost his footing and disappeared off the edge into the forest below. My heart sank, and I immediately yelled to him. He was quick to assure me he was fine and laughed it off. He was extremely lucky that he landed between to large rocks below his fall from about 6 feet above. Luckily this was the worse part of the day as we collected our selves for the multiple overlooks and beautiful park that it is. We did get turned around once which led me to walk an addition 1.2 miles to collect "Valak" ( our Sequoia ) but it was a walk I would gladly make again for my crew. We explored for over 4 hours and our Chacos where starting to leave their mark. We decided to try and drive down to the campground looking for ponies as the older boys and I opted for the additional mileage here again. I can't wait to explore there again with my motley crew, but next weekend we are off to Hot Springs, NC! Stay tuned for those pictures next week, but below you will find the images from our last adventure! I'll post some from the Pentax 645n to my IG soon as well.
