Ah yes, it's that time of year again. Days are getting shorter and the nights getting chillier with a hint of snow in the air. Yeah, it's autumn, that ever elsusive transition between T-Shirts and Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. Autumn is my favorite time of the year, but seems to be the shortest and most unpredictable as well. Leaves start to change, but 'peak" color is a bit tricky to forecast, let alone observe during this capricious in-between hot and cold season. A couple of days of heavy rain and or strong winds can blow the leaves off the trees leaving bare branches which turn the landscape a monotone gray. We call it stick season then.
For most people, peak colors occur when the hillside is aflame like a giant bowl of Trix cereal with its kaleidoscope of colors. Factors such as the type of summer weather leading up to fall plays a major role in determining how the trees will react. Sure, the shortening of days and the cool night time temps plays a role.
As soon as the leaves show any measurable sign of changing is when I try to get out and observe nature's paint bucket gone wild. I like the greens still visible against the yellows and subtle oranges.
Photographing foliage is kinda tricky. If you shoot too early in the season, you don't get the dramatic warm tones and if you wait too long, you only get splashes of red against the already bare branches from the leaves having blown off the trees.
Early morning is usually the best time to capture the crisp contrast between the brightly lit trees against the dark blue sky. However, my favorite times are when there is a slight overcast sky which does not wash out the colors and helps to capture the dynamic tones which otherwise get blown out when attempting to capture it with your camera under bright sunlight. As long as you don't include too much of the washed out gray sky, shots taken on a cloudy day will yield better results.
Oh, since color vision isn't a lacking factor for those of us with albinism, we are able to enjoy the colors of autumn just like the rest of the population, although we may not be able to make out the individual leaves from a distance. They may appear as grainy clumps of color. Also overcast days allow us, and you, to pick out the more subtle tones as mentioned earlier. A nice trick to really make the colors pop when viewing fall foliage is to wear polarized sunglasses which cut out some reflective glare and give it a nice saturated look. Also using a polarizing filter over your camera lens will achieve the same effect, although you'll have to remove your polarized sunglasses when peering through the viewfinder - unless you like the psychedelic colors the dual polarization creates. So go put on your windbreaker and grab your camera and head out into the autumn air and take in one of nature's best attempts at painting by number. I sound like a corny tour guide. LOL Oh, they call out-of-state visitors that come up here to New England to view the colors "leaf peepers."
Check out my FLICR photostream for more images from autumn and beyond.
