Autumn is probably my favorite season of the year. Summer’s brutal temperatures have finally begun to abate, and the leaves come alive in various shades of red, yellow, and orange.
In Arkansas, autumn’s change of color is quite unpredictable and notoriously short. It sometimes seems that the leaves can go from green to splotches of color to gone within the course of a single week or less. Trying to photograph autumn color can be maddening to say the least. When everything comes together, it can be amazing. But, when it doesn’t, there’s always Photoshop.
A few years ago, I went on the hunt to photograph autumn colors and headed to the Dagmar Wildlife Management Area. With a thick forest and lots of water, I thought it would be the perfect place to find my quarry.
When I arrived, I found that the color change I was expecting had not come to pass. While there were some small areas of color, the trees were still mostly covered in green leaves, not the reds, yellows, or oranges I was hoping to find. After two hours of searching for the ever elusive fall color, I decided to call it a day and head home.
As I was making my way back to the main highway, I noticed the trees had grown over this small section of the road creating a canopy of limbs and leaves. Although the leaves were still green, I decided to stop and photograph this amazing scene. So, setting up in the middle of the road, I got this shot.
When I got home and reviewed the picture, I liked the overall composition of the image. But, with all the green leaves, the picture still felt like summer rather than autumn. The calendar said it was October, and I wanted an image that screamed “Autumn is here!” But, all the green leaves did not send that message.
To create the image I had envisioned, I had to give Mother Nature a helping hand and provide the autumn colors I had been looking for. After processing the image in Adobe Camera Raw, I opened the file in Photoshop, cloned out some distracting elements, and then applied the Indian Summer filter found in the Google Nik Collection. This changed the color of the leaves from shades of summer green to various shades of autumn orange.