Photographer Cory Franklin's festival booth is surefire 'bright' spot

Cory Franklin will take part in this year's upcoming Unicoi County Apple Festival with a booth dedicated to his photography capturing some of the most glowing examples of the natural world to be found in the county. Franklin has been dedicated for several years to photographing fireflies and other bioluminescent creatures. He worked as a park ranger at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethton and for the past few years at Rocky Fork State Park in Flag Pond. "My role as a park ranger with the state of Tennessee has without a doubt shaped my love for photography," Franklin said. "I always felt that as a ranger I would be crazy to not attempt to document the natural world around me as I grew in my career," he added. "Ultimately though, my job has allowed me to meet some incredible photographers over the years, and a good southern upbringing, fostered connections and friendships with folks I doubt I would have had the courage to talk to," he sad. "Just to name a few – David Ramsey, Marty Silver, Radim Shcreiber, Jared Jarvis – and so many more!" He noted that he has been into photography for as long as he can remember. "Some of my earliest memories on family vacation, I can remember using the disposable camera we had purchased for the trip, and I am sure in the opinion of a lot of my family, wasted a good portion of the shots on those cameras," he said. He credited his grandfather, Owen Franklin, as the biggest influence in his later years. "He still has things to teach me," Franklin said. Franklin said that his grandfather traveled the country with his wife, the late Anna Franklin, and has floppy disk, CDs, and thumb drives full of incredible shots. "I also took a photography course when I was a freshman at King College in Bristol," he said. "And I played in a summer wood bat league in Boulder, Colorado." He added that those three months along the foothills of the Rockies allowed him to use the knowledge he gained in the photography course as a young adult. "It shaped a lot of my love for photography," he said. "If I had to put a number on my years of experience, though, I would say 10 plus years," Franklin said when asked about how long he has been pursuing photography. "As a beginner photographer I enjoyed almost any subject," Franklin shared. "I loved taking my camera fly fishing with friends and found I often wouldn't have my fly rod, but you can bet my camera was strapped on and ready for action." While a ranger at Sycamore Shoals he gained experience with portrait photography during the park's living history events. He also photographed raptors as they glided along the banks of the Watauga River in search of their next meal. "I fell in love with landscape and wildlife photography fully when I transferred back to Rocky Fork in 2023," he said. "How can you not? We are surrounded by beautiful wilderness and thriving biodiversity." His work at the park also led to his discovery of firefly photography. "At first, I took photos for our events, learning from the attendees at our park," he explained. Many of the attendees were professional photographers he had developed friendships with along the years, and of course he still had much to learn from his wonderful grandfather. "My firefly obsession quickly consumed my downtime and my now fiancée, Montana Bremerman, and I find ourselves out nightly chasing the faintest glow or flash in an effort to identify new species," Franklin said. "I always say she is the brains and my camera the documenter," he added. "We are now up to 24 species of fireflies in Unicoi County," Franklin said. "Montana always has a new project going, but she mostly does watercolor/gouache paintings of fireflies," Franklin said. "She's got a true gift." Her paintings are quite authentic. The couple used a painting that Bremerman did of a blue ghost and ran it through an ID app. Sure enough, the app came back with the identification as a blue ghost, Franklin noted. Franklin said that his favorite photography subject is by far natural bioluminescence but he also considers landscape and wildlife photography an integral part of capturing our native flashers in his photos. For his booth at the Apple Festival, he will mostly bring photos of bioluminescent species (fireflies, foxfire, glowworms) that he has captured in the Blue Ridge Mountains over the past several years. "I plan to have a photo album of other subject matter, such as landscapes and other wildlife, but at the end of the day, I feel most comfortable selling and displaying my work on fireflies," he said. "Maybe that's another thing my job has allowed me to do – see where others are vastly superior at landscape and wildlife photography then I am, while understanding, that not many folks spend the countless hours I have chasing fireflies under the dark canopy." Franklin is at work on building a website to feature his work and perhaps sell some photos. "This part is a work in progress," he added. He noted that flashonfoundation.com will be the domain name so that he and his fiancée can both use the platform to sell photography as well as her incredible artwork. "We have future goals of turning this into a nonprofit to raise awareness about our native bioluminescence as well as funds for future research," Franklin added.