Last week, I mentioned that Autumn was right around the corner. Well. . .Autumn has officially arrived. September 23 marked this year’s Autumn equinox, and I must say that feeling is definitely in the air. In honor of Autumn’s arrival, I thought I would go through my photo archive and share some of my pictures that, to me, best represent the season.
The first image is of a cypress tree I photographed in the Dagmar Wildlife Management Area. It was standing mostly in the shade, but some of its branches and needles were being lit by sunlight. It was this lighting contrast, along with the reds and oranges of the needles, that caught my attention.
The next picture required a lot of time and effort to get to it. . .I had to walk all the way out to my front porch. That’s right, this tree is in my front yard. This was the first and, so far, only time, I’ve seen it so dressed up for the season. Fortunately, I can keep it under constant surveillance for the next time.
For this image, I had to walk all the way to my backyard. I had noticed this scene many times before, but I had never really paid much attention to it. But, one day, I’m not sure if it was the lighting, the autumn leaves, or something else, but this was the first time it really stood out to me. It took me three attempts throughout the day to get the composition just the way I wanted.
I had forgotten I even had this photograph in my library until I came across it a few weeks ago. I captured this bright orange-leafed tree a couple of years ago during the same trip to Devil’s Den State Park that produced last week’s image.
Finally, an image I created nearly six years ago on one of my early trips to Dagmar Wildlife Management Area. It was the trail meandering through trees that caught my attention. As I was processing the file, I began to envision a soft, dream-like, painterly image, and that’s what I created. For me, this represents everything I love about Autumn: colorful trees, leaves lying on the ground, and a sense of peacefulness as Mother Nature prepares for her upcoming winter nap.
