Autumn... the year's last, loveliest smile.
- William Cullen Bryant
NO! It doesn't get any better than autumn! (This may be the shortest blog post ever written....)
Okay, if you are a regular reader of this blog you know I can't stop there.... You will also know that autumn is my favorite time of the year, followed by spring and then winter. I am not a fan of summer anymore.
I look forward to the cooler weather, the smell of the woods and, of course, the beauty of the foliage. I try to time a week’s vacation to coincide with peak foliage but always seem to be off by a week – either early or late. Last year I was about a week early of the peak in the Delaware Water Gap region and this year I am about a week late. It really doesn’t matter but one of these years I am going to get it right – hopefully I still can walk under my own power. 😉
Spring Lake
One of my sunset locations has been Divine Lake in Spring Lake and I always thought it would make a nice location for foliage, too. There are a few wooden footbridges and fountains, with lots of trees. I set out on a dreary Sunday afternoon to see what the foliage was like. Leaving the house with a prediction of 10% chance of rain – that quickly turned to 100% before I arrived at the lake. That’s okay, rain hasn’t stopped me in the past. In fact, I think some of my most successful autumn images were made during, or shortly after, a rainstorm.
When I got to my intended site, I realized there really wasn’t a composition. I drove around to the other side of the lake to find that there was potential. It was raining steadily so I left my gear in the car, walked to the edge of the lake and snapped a few images with my phone. I wasn’t sure if there was a composition. Once I got out of the rain, I looked at the snapshot on my phone; it was then that I decided to wait out the downpour and do some shooting.
This was a good situation for a long exposure, I wanted to eliminate – or at least minimize – the raindrops and ripples in the lake. Fortunately, there was virtually no wind at all, so I didn’t have to worry about the leaves on the trees blurring. There is some movement of the leaves in the bottom of the first image adding a bit of foreground interest.
I then turned my attention specifically to the footbridge – a wide shot and then a tighter crop. One common thread in all three (3) images is the large limb hanging over the lake. I was drawn to it because of the way it was framing the scene – particularly in the tighter image of the bridge.
Manasquan Reservoir
I went on a marathon excursion (about 100 miles) in search of foliage but came away mostly empty. I did come away with one image from “the Boneyard” (my wife’s term) at Manasquan Reservoir. The reservoir, particularly in the Chestnut Point area, provides a great contrast between the dead trees in, and around the water, and the foliage on the banks. The water level has been lower than I ever remember it being which is good for photography but not in the overall scheme of life.
This first image is from my favorite reservoir sunrise location (
Manasquan Reservoir - A Sunrise & Sunset Weekend). I really struggled here – the sky wasn’t great, the colors muted and on the other side of the lake, about a half-mile or so away. I liked the idea of having this stump as foreground, it has such great texture. The solution was to leave the tripod down low, use a longer focal length to compress the scene and see what happens. A little bit of post-processing to bring out some of the color resulted in a reasonably good image.
Last October I had a much more fruitful experience. I decided to stop on my way home from work, in the rain, and capture some of the color. I came away with two (2) images that the color was near peak (peak?) that afternoon; the rain helped to bring out and saturate the color. These are two of my favorite autumn images, I share my favorite one here. You may have seen this image before – I used it in my earlier blog post about the reservoir (
Parks of Monmouth County - Manasquan Reservoir)
In Closing
So.... Have I convinced you that autumn is the greatest season? While this autumn didn't produce quite the bounty of images I was hoping, I did come away with some that I am quite happy with. The only thing about autumn that I don't like is that it is far too short! I would love to live somewhere with a five (5) month autumn, four (4) month spring, two (2) month winter, and a month of summer. Yea, that would make me happy. What about you? Is autumn your favorite? If not, what is? Let me know in the comments below. Which is your favorite image from today's post? I would love to hear what you think.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed the images.
Technical information:
- Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i (crop sensor - 1.6 factor)
- Lens: Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
- Tripod: MeFOTO Roadtrip Classic
- All images - ISO 100
- All focal lengths are as-recorded - the full-frame equivalent is in parentheses.
- Focus and exposure were done manually*. The shutter was tripped with a wired remote.
* - I set the focus and exposure manually but that in no way means you have to do that. I was playing with exposures and it is easier to do so in "M". I typically use "aperture-priority" when I am out.
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