Inspiration Point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Inspiring View

A view across a portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Inspiration Point along the Alum Cave Trail in Tennessee.

Maybe they call this Inspiration Point because it inspires you to keep going up the mountain trail. As for me, I was inspired to stop and rest for a bit to catch my breath after all that climbing. After all, a mountain trail is not like the flat trails that we have here at the opposite end of Tennessee.

And if you are going to stop for a rest, you might as well have a good view, too. As you can see, the view was pretty nice.

More Inspiring Views

As you can see from the first photo, there was a mix of clouds and fog during our hike. No one was complaining, however, because the sun would have made us all feel hotter than we already were.

However, just after we arrived at Inspiration Point, the sun broke through the clouds, and we could also see a bit of blue sky. That made the views even better, as is shown in these photos.

For the above photo, I had moved just a little farther up the trail from the previous photo. Close to the same spot and the same view, but slightly different.

These previous two photos illustrate one of the challenges during our trip. Just about everywhere I turned, I saw another great view. I could have taken lots more photos than I took, and I took a lot. It is slightly difficult to know which ones to share, because they are all interesting to me, even if some of them are similar. That is why there are several photos in this post, along with many of the other posts from our trip.

Here is one more view for you to enjoy. I liked all of the different pine trees that were seemingly off by themselves, and I thought they made good subjects for photos. Of course, it helped that they had a great background behind them, too.

People on the Path

In addition to being a good place to catch our breath, Inspiration Point was a good place to take a few people photos, too. Here are some that we took.

When we stopped, Laura used Brant’s shoulder as a resting place. I thought it was a good photo opportunity. If you don’t know, Brant is the tallest of the four of us. But from the camera angle and the fact that Laura was standing on an incline, it almost looks like she is taller than Brant in this photo. I thought it was a funny effect.

Since we had Brant and Laura in a photo, here are Karen and me, just to even things out.

Brant and Karen took a selfie, so I took a photo of them taking a photo of themselves, just for good measure.

And I also took a selfie of Laura and me, although I don’t have a photo of the photo being taken this time. And ignore the fog on our glasses. Did I mention we had worked up a sweat?

Check back later on for more photos from our Great Smoky Mountains trip!

Bible Verse

Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord. - Psalm 36:6

About the Photos

You might find it hard to believe, but all of the non-people photos in this post used the same preset. I actually started with the second photo in this post and got all the settings like I wanted them. I saved that preset in Luminar AI and then applied it to all of the other photos. Yes, even the cloudy photo uses the same preset. It looks different because of the different light, but the settings are actually the same.

I even started with the same preset for the people photos, but then I modified each one slightly to make sure the people looked normal and not some odd color.

The selfie photos were taken with my iPhone, and that explains why they look a little different from the other photos. The cameras in iPhones are good, but I still prefer a “real” camera. Except that I did not bring a lens wide enough to get a good selfie photo. So instead of carrying an extra lens (that I do not have for this camera) or two cameras, I just used my iPhone for those.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Luminar AI. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS Lens
Date: July 19, 2021
Location: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee