Filtered light streams through the trees in the foggy valley below

I was out on the Blue Ridge Parkway photographing sunrise and early morning shots at some of the many locations near my home in Western NC when I happened along an overlook with something special going on.

Looking due East from the overlook, you could see a deep, flat valley filled with the healthy remains of the morning fog that had rolled in during the wee hours of the morning. Sunlight from the rising sun was in my eyes as I down looked at the great shapes and textures that the fog made, and I hurried to put on my 100-400mm telephoto lens and lens hood to get some closer studies of the really cool fog shapes I saw far below me.

After a while of this foggy photography, the sun, riding higher now in the sky, started to cause dark shadows to be cast through some of the trees and through the fog in the valley below, causing straight lines of shadows to be visible. This intensified as the sun became higher in the sky…

I was so excited to see this phenomenon, through the lens of my camera. I had debated about leaving this spot and driving on to photograph some butterflies I had noticed a few days before.

Patience paid off.  I named filtered light “shadow lines” although there’s probably a name for them, just as “crepuscular rays” is the tem for sunbeams, or God beams, shining down from the sky.

I’m very happy that I stopped at this particular place, at that particular time. I’m also happy that I had the patience to wait for the magic to happen

And it usually does happen. There for the taking if we bother to look, see and appreciate.