It started on a random Tuesday morning.
I was on the bus to the lab, scrolling through Google News like I usually do, when I saw an article about the firefly lottery in the Smokies. Peak season. End of May. Just a couple weeks away. So I did what any reasonable photographer would do. I applied immediately.
A week later, I got the email. I had scored a spot.
The next problem was figuring out who to go with. I reached out to the friends I usually travel with. No luck. Everyone was leaving before the summer semester started. Raja Ampat. Hawaii. Alaska. Good problems to have, just not helpful for me.
So I started asking around. The first person I reached out to was my friend Amarnath. He’s also in grad school, out in California. Somehow, he was free that weekend.
That was all I needed.
We booked flights. Got an Airbnb. A week later, we were flying to Knoxville.
This was my first time in Tennessee.
After a few years in Colorado, the difference hit immediately. The air felt heavy. Humid. Everything was green. Not just green, but lush. The kind of green you don’t really get out west.
Getting there, of course, wasn’t smooth.
The flight from Denver to Chicago was fine. The second leg was not. Tiny plane. Just ten seats. No space for a camera bag. I had to pull out my inserts and convince the flight attendant to stow it safely because of all the lithium batteries. No way I was checking that bag.
Thankfully, everything made it in one piece.
Day 1
We headed into the Smokies to explore a bit before the fireflies. We picked a trail. Started hiking. And then it started raining. Not light rain. The kind that slowly soaks everything. The trail turned to mud. My shoes were not built for this. I was slipping everywhere. Every step felt like a gamble. But we kept going.
Eventually, we made it to Grotto Falls.
And it was worth it.
By the time we got back, we were soaked, tired, and a little concerned. It hadn’t stopped raining all day. And rain is not what you want when you’re trying to photograph fireflies. Still, we headed to the viewing area that evening. The rain had eased up by then, which was a good sign. Warm, humid air. That’s what they like. The rangers told us we were in for a good night.
We found a spot. Set up a composition. And waited. At first, it was underwhelming.
A few fireflies blinking here and there. I remember thinking, this might be a bust.
Then slowly, almost without noticing, it started building. More lights. More movement. And then suddenly, the entire forest came alive. Not random blinking. Not scattered.
Synchronized.
One side of the forest would light up. A pause. Then the other side. Over and over again. It felt unreal. Like the whole landscape was breathing.
This wasn’t just any group of fireflies. These were synchronous fireflies, one of the very few species in North America that can coordinate their flashes. They don’t just glow randomly. They communicate. Entire sections of the forest pulsing together, almost like a signal passing through the trees.
It’s something you don’t really understand from photos or videos. You have to be there. Standing in the dark, watching the forest light up in waves, perfectly timed, over and over again.
That’s when things got stressful.
To make the image, I had to shoot long exposures. Bulb mode. Let the scene build over time. But there were people walking around with red headlamps. Most were careful. Some weren’t. If even a bit of red light hit the frame, that exposure was gone.
So I sat there, watching everything. The fireflies. The people. The light. Starting exposures. Stopping them early. Starting again. It was chaotic. A little nerve-wracking. But it worked.
We got back to the Airbnb, and I plugged in my SD card to start going through the images.
And that’s when my heart dropped. Every single frame. Small JPEG. Not RAW.
On a normal day, that’s a disaster. You lose flexibility. Dynamic range. Recovery. Everything you rely on in a scene like this. But somehow, it didn’t matter. The files held up. The camera held up. And I was still able to build the image I had in mind.
That one mistake could have ruined the entire trip.
But it didn’t, and I got the shot
The next day, we went back out to explore Cades Cove area. Within a couple hours, we had four or five very close encounters with black bears. Probably saw close to seventy in total. But that is a story for another time.
