Category Archives: Color

Hunger Games, the blockbuster movie, based on the novel by Suzanne Collins, was filmed entirely in Western North Carolina. The story takes place in the apocalyptic future after the destruction of North America, in a nation known as Panem. This new nation consists of the wealthy capital, Capitol, and twelve surrounding, poorer districts.

District 12, where the tale begins, is located in what had been known as Appalachia. The District 12 scenes were filmed in the ghost town that was once the Henry River Mill Village near Hildebrand, NC. Built in the early years of the 20th century, this self contained community consisted of a hydro powered textile mill, dam, general store, fire protection, and workers’ cottages.

It was those cottages I hoped to photograph. On a road trip through Western North Carolina mountains recently, while trying to escape the 100-plus degree temperatures, we decided to look for the site. To our surprise, the rather idyllic area was easy to find and very accessible. Using a wide angle lens, I spent about thirty minutes making the photos below and we were on our way again. In case you are interested, the entire 1500 acres are for sale for a reported 1.4 million.

For you photographers, each HDR image was created from five bracketed, hand held shots, then processed in Photomatix Pro, imported into Lightroom 4 and tweaked with minor additional adjustments.