We are slowly getting there. Every week the colors of the deciduous trees are getting more and more intense. What worries me though is that for now only a small minority of all trees has been affected by nature’s hue/saturation optimizer. By the time the remaining majority of the trees are ready for the annual show-off, the early adopters will probably already be leafless and thus annoying, bald dissidents in an otherwise beautiful landscape. But alas, it will never be perfect and we have to make do with what we are offered. I was happy to see that the forest edge along the largest fen at my playground had colored enough to give my photographs a clear sense of the colorful autumn season they were shot in.
The Friday morning was relatively cloudless and calm, and so it seemed obvious to me to photograph the autumn colors and their perfectly mirror-like reflections in the fen. The few clouds that were there drifted away before the rising sun could hit them with a blast of pink, but in hindsight I think the dark blue sky makes for a better companion to the warm hues of autumn that were hit by the first rays of the sun. A touch of fog would have been nice, but on the other hand, a portfolio with only foggy photos gets boring quickly.
I am sure next weekend will be the best for autumn colors. Somehow, the last weekend of October always is. Unfortunately (although not really), I will be in Germany attending the annual GDT nature photography festival. That means two full days inside a theatre, forgoing all of the beauty outside and no possibility to take photos. But in return, lectures by some of the biggest names in nature photography and engaging chats with equally passionate friends usually provide more than enough inspiration for yet another year of nature photography. Still, if we could have the best of both worlds…maybe we should sign a petition to move the festival to summer. If not, from now on GDT will be the abbreviation for Gefangenschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen.
Autumn Reflection; Canon 5D Mark III w. 17-40/4L; 1.3s at F16 and ISO100; polarizer, ND grad, tripod, remote release