“Autumnal” – that’s where Radar O’Reilly is from, isn’t it?
Now on to part two of the recent fall color pics, most of them from right here at Walkabout Estates Plus, but a few from a downtown park. Like this one:
We actually saw this same tree last time – this is just a different spot on it. Making sure to use the backlighting, of course.
The light wasn’t the best, the colors not exactly popping, but convincing the geese to come back at a better time wasn’t going to happen – and I didn’t tweak this one for more saturation this time, either. Perhaps I should’ve…
I remarked earlier that the bald cypress in the immediate vicinity all had different schedules for changing. We have this one, hanging on in places:
… and then this one, completely given over to the orange side:
… and why there’s such a difference, I couldn’t say (without a decent contract.) It’s not like there’s any significant change in the conditions, or their distance from the pond. The best I can say is that, due to the open area of lawn (I use that word loosely) alongside this one, it receives more direct sunlight than the others which are clustered together, so maybe that’s it.
We can’t neglect our leaves on the water, a perennial favorite of mine:
I made it a point to choose an angle that caught the sky and neighboring tree trunks reflecting from the water, brightening the frame considerably more than the typical dark water background. And selected that red leaf of course, but there aren’t enough maple trees in the area to provide sufficient fallen red leaves. We are at least trying to remedy that with the Japanese maples that we planted, but they’re all pretty small right now so their contributions are minimal – give it a few years. Though this one is trying:
Yes, we saw this same coral bark Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sango kaku’) before, and we’ll see some of the leaves again as a setting in a post or two, but I just like the way the colors change so abruptly on the same branch, and this tree isn’t even as tall as I am, having maybe a half dozen branches – we just got it this summer, and transplanted it less than a month ago. I may also be back to feature another, whose autumn changes made me wish I’d set up to do a time lapse.
C’mon, clear blue skies and backlit yellow leaves? You always have to try and make those work, even when you have a bare quartet of leaves to work with (I think this is a grape vine.)
Now, the same night that I did the ‘supermoon’ pics, I also did some time exposures by the light of said moon, and we’re going to see four of them, spaced out a little. This is the first:
81 seconds, f5.6, ISO 800 – you can see some streaks from the stars, and they’re only as short as this because this was facing north-northeast. But I also did a variation of this perspective in daytime, albeit when the sun vanished behind a cloud:
Another look at the wood duck nest box, patiently awaiting its use in early spring. See that trunk just barely peeking in the frame to the right? That’s the same as in the image above it, the most distinct one a little right of center – the moon wasn’t reaching the nest box at that time, unfortunately.
That’s Turtle Island in the center there, which appears to be in the center of a well-trimmed lawn because of the duckweed, but that is indeed water. This is about a dozen meters to the right of the previous night exposure, on the bend on the pond.
Another from the park – maple? Not sure. I selected the leaf at bottom as the focal point because it’s relatively unobscured and unshadowed, and made sure the focus brought out the veins.
Back to Walkabout Estates at night:
A similar shot, also under moonlight, was featured a month ago – last full moon, of course – but without much of the autumn coloration then. Once again, a little assistance was provided by the streelight that sits at the head of the driveway, coming in from the right around the end of the house. Though it’s not terribly visible, the thicket to the right is actually the foliage within The Puddle, a damp hollow that’s sometimes a tiny pond, and sometimes just squishy – it’s closer to pond right now.
Back to daylight.
Another branch of the bald cypress right in mid-change, caught as a shaft of sunlight worked its way through the canopy, making it glow. We’ll see another variation of this later on.
Back to moonlight.
We saw this same perspective a month ago, too, even with the same strand of Spanish moss, but without the schmuck this time. That’s Duck Island left of center, four different species of tree sprouting from one little tussock that isn’t even above water right now. I like how the moonlight rendered this (84 seconds, f5.6, ISO 800.)
And finally, back to daylight, kinda,
I’ve done a variation of this long ago, with the fallen leaves and the reflection of bare branches in the water surrounding them, but this time it’s more mocking with full foliage in the reflection. While the light is distinctly low-contrast and the colors all quite muted, the image nevertheless has high contrast from the water reflecting the sky and the leaf shadows, with the surface tension rimming much of the detail in stark outlines – I like how this came out, half-unintentionally, and you’ll see a variant of it soon.
That clears out the autumn colors that I’d had in the folder, which is not to say that some more won’t be along, but this is the best showing that I’ve had in years, I think. Without making any special trips, either. One of these days, we’ll get a mountain trip timed right, though we’re now at least five hours from the mountains. Too late for it this year, but there’s still time to find a few more selections of foliage in this area, so we’ll see what transpires.