Chasing waterfalls leads to winning Mountain Traveler cover photo

By Kimberly Brown  ----------  One of the things Donna Shirley of Cornelia loves most is traveling around Northeast Georgia and up the Blue Ridge Parkway with her husband, Hoke, and their dog, Daisy, to chase waterfalls, see beautiful scenery and take photographs.  And that hobby has paid off. Donna Shirley’s photo of Anna Ruby Falls has been chosen as the winner of The Mountain Traveler’s summer 2023 cover contest. Shirley received $100 for her photograph.
“I’m really pleased,” she said of winning the contest. “I was very surprised.”
Shirley’s photo was taken on May 27, 2022, after a big rain.
“When it rains a lot, we know it’s a good time to go chasing waterfalls,” she said. “You can tell a big difference (after a rain).”
The Shirleys love to hike in the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia. They’ve recently hiked Tanawha Trail near Blowing Rock, the Rough Ridge Trail and Pilot Mountain, all in North Carolina, and they visited Cades Cove in Tennessee.
“We love hiking,” she said. “We like to take pictures of waterfalls, animals, birds and nature. We call it ‘our ramblings,’ so when we travel, I put up on Facebook what day it is and where we’ve gone.”
She said a lot of her Facebook friends, particularly older people who don’t travel anymore, enjoy seeing the photos she posts.
“They say they armchair travel with us,” she said. “We see so many pretty things. We go on the backroads, and we find neat things, like deer and turkeys and elk.”
Shirley said the Blue Ridge Parkway is her absolute favorite place to explore and take photos. In Northeast Georgia, her favorite places are “anywhere in Rabun County and White County.”
“Wolffork Valley is beautiful,” she said. “Black Rock Mountain, Anna Ruby, Helen, Richard B. Russell Parkway and Brasstown Bald. … There are just so many places. We’ll see a road, and say, ‘I wonder what’s out there?’ … I enjoy seeing God’s beautiful creation and sharing it with people.”
About photography, Shirley said, “I’ve piddled around all my life. I had a 35-mm camera, that used film. I had a dog, Prissy, and I’d put her in the flowers, and she’d pose for me.”
Shirley took the winning photograph with an iPhone 11, though she currently uses an iPhone 14 Pro.
Shirley advises you should “look a little closer” when you’re taking a photo.
“When we’re on a trail or somewhere, I’ll look for unusual flowers and that kind of thing,” she said. “You’ve got to look in every nook and cranny.”
She also recommends taking a lot of photos to get one or two great ones.
“Sometimes you get good shots, and sometimes you don’t,” she said.
Shirley retired from South State Bank in 2018, and she and Hoke Shirley married in 2019. The couple attends Level Grove Baptist Church.
There were about 25 submissions for the 2023 summer edition of The Mountain Traveler. Submissions included mountain views, close-ups of flowers, wildlife, barns, and of course, waterfalls.
It was the bright blue sky, green leaves and the clear water of Anna Ruby Falls that made Shirley’s photo a winner, said Alan NeSmith, Community Newspapers Inc. chairman.
“We received a lot of great submissions, so it was a hard decision,” NeSmith said. “But Donna’s picture captured the view mountain travelers are looking for.”
Published in the summer and fall, The Mountain Traveler is a full-color regional visitor and travel guide for Northeast Georgia. It is available now at stores, shops, visitor centers and other key distribution points all around the region.