Blue Ridge Parkway Road Trip: Cameras, Prime Lenses, and R Data Tips
A blue ridge parkway road trip gives you 469 miles of overlooks, forests, and mountain fog that change every 10 minutes depending on weather and elevation. It’s one of the best places in the country to practice self portrait photography against dramatic natural backdrops. Whether you’re shooting yourself in a wide mountain meadow or framing a tight portrait against a tunnel entrance, the Parkway hands you endless variety.
This guide covers what is a prime lens and why one belongs in your bag for this trip, how to set up your self portrait photography workflow at remote overlooks, and a quick tutorial on how to use remove all objects in r and r remove all objects commands when you’re cleaning up your location data spreadsheets back home.
Gearing Up: What Is a Prime Lens and Why It Matters Here
Prime vs. Zoom on the Parkway
So what is a prime lens? It’s a lens with a fixed focal length — no zoom. Common options are 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. The payoff is a wider maximum aperture, typically f/1.4 to f/2, which means more light in dim mountain mornings and beautifully blurred backgrounds that separate your subject from the tree line.
On a blue ridge parkway road trip, an 85mm prime is ideal for self portrait photography because it compresses the mountain scenery behind you without distorting your face. Set it on a tripod, use a 10-second self-timer or a remote shutter, and walk into frame. The fixed focal length actually helps — you dial in your composition once and just move yourself within it.
Aperture and Light at Elevation
Mountain light changes fast. At sunrise on the Parkway, temperatures drop to 40–50°F even in summer, which creates morning fog in the valleys. Shoot at f/2 to f/2.8 to pull enough light before the sun clears the ridge. By 9 AM the light gets harsher; find shade or a forested pull-off to continue your self portrait photography without blown highlights.
A prime lens with image stabilization handles the occasional handheld grab shot when you don’t want to set up a tripod. For tripod shots, turn stabilization off so the motor doesn’t fight the locked position.
Planning Stops Along Your Blue Ridge Parkway Road Trip
The Parkway runs from Shenandoah in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. Top photography stops include Mabry Mill (milepost 176), Rough Ridge (milepost 302), and Waterrock Knob (milepost 451) for sunset panoramas. Each location offers a different character — rural farm infrastructure, exposed granite ridgeline, and open sky respectively.
For self portrait photography, scouted locations beat random pull-offs. Use Google Street View ahead of time to check sight lines and background options. Arrive 30 minutes before golden hour to set your tripod and test your framing before the light peaks.
Cleaning Location Data with R Remove All Objects
After your blue ridge parkway road trip, you might have a location log CSV from your GPS unit or phone. If you’re working in R to map your stops or analyze driving times, sessions accumulate old variables fast. The command to r remove all objects from your workspace is rm(list = ls()). Run it at the top of any new analysis script to start clean.
The phrase remove all objects in r refers to the same function: rm(list = ls()) clears every variable from your current environment. If you want to remove all objects in r except specific ones — say, your raw data frame — use rm(list = setdiff(ls(), "my_data")). This keeps your import intact while wiping temporary variables from earlier processing steps.
Key takeaways: Pack a prime lens for the Parkway — the fixed focal length and wide aperture pay off at every overlook. Plan your self portrait photography stops with Street View scouting before you arrive. When you get home and open R to map your trip, run rm(list = ls()) first to keep your workspace clean.