Nantahala

The Nantahala River runs through a deep, narrow gorge in the mountains of western North Carolina — the name is Cherokee, often translated as "land of the noon-day sun," because the gorge is so steep and tight that direct sunlight reaches the bottom only in the middle of the day. The water is cold and fast, released from the bottom of an upstream dam, and the gorge it cuts is one of the most dramatic stretches of river in the southern Appalachians.

Photographed in 2010 in black and white during a trip through the southern mountains. The Nantahala is the kind of place monochrome was made for — dark wet rock, white water, deep shade, and the high walls of the gorge closing out the sky.