What do you do if you’ve gone out for fall color and you find it’s gone? That’s happened many, many times to me. It’s really hard to predict weeks, months or a year in advance the dates when the fall color will be peak for photography. Mother Nature will do what she wants to do and with all the outside influences the last couple of years, it’s all over the map. So that amazing weekend of fall color photography might not be that amazing. While not as glorious there is some great photos waiting for you. Here’s one idea. Last fall, not only was fall early in the Tetons, the park was closed because of the government shut down. Talk about a photography downer. Finding “great” color just wasn’t going to happen but in some instances, just some color can get the story across.
The subject in these two photos is not the fall color but the pattern made by the Aspen trunks. In diffused or overcast light, the trunks take on an almost “glow” quality that along with their black striping, is very eye grabbing. The two tricks in making this photo is a longer lens and finding small amphitheaters. The gear is pretty simple. I shot with the D4s, 24-70AFS and 80-400VR3 which gave me the ability to be further away from the trunks and visually “stack” them up in the frame. The amphitheater is what I call a bunch of trees surrounding a clearing. It’s avoiding the preverbal “seeing the trees from the forest” issue. No, not the big, grand fall color shot but it’s making lemonade from lemons. I’ve got the feeling for many locales, we’ll be shooting more images like this in the coming weeks. Still gorgeous and just a challenge that will make our photography grow.