Indiana, Fall 2020, Yellowwood State Forest

To find places to get out into nature and find prospective places for outdoor photography, I frequently look at maps, either paper maps or digital maps with satellite views.  Using this method I found that the Yellowwood State Forest was only a few miles from the cabin, where we were staying.  So I had to take time to explore that area.

There is a sizable lake in Yellowwood State Forest with a trail that goes around the lake.  The first part of the trail beginning at a parking lot was not of great interest. It was sandwiched between the lake and a roadway for maybe a half mile before it began to depart from the roadway at the end of the lake.

Near where the trail turned away from the roadway, I found an old dead tree that looked like a good photography subject.

On the opposite side of the lake from the parking area, a branch went away from the lake; but I continued along the trail that followed the lake shoreline.  The trail became more scenic there with the lake on one side and deeper woods on the other side.

It was a little early in the afternoon for the best light for outdoor photography, so including any portion of the sky produced unpleasant results and I did not try to use any filters, while shooting handheld.  I posted a cropped version of the hiking trail image (above) on Flickr.  I think you will agree that taking out the sky improved this image.

I found the growth pattern of the vine in the above photo interesting.  Why did it make those right angle turns?  It eventually went up the tree in the normal direction.  Maybe it got its directions from Apple Maps.

I began to look for ways to exclude the sky from my compositions.  Sometimes portions of the sky were necessary to get the desired parts of the landscape into my compositions with my lens of choice, then I cropped the sky out in post processing.

There is also a cropped version, isolating the back lit leaves on the forest floor, of the image above on Flickr.

The toadstool image here is a cropped version of one that is posted to Flickr.  I thought that there were distracting parts of the original image, so I severely cropped it; but I actually still prefer the original version.

Fall in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana

The portions of my images from this trip that include the upper parts of the larger, more mature trees, show the lack of foliage on them.  This would have been a much more successful visit for outdoor fall photography had I been here a few days earlier; but that is the gamble one makes, with long range planning.  One has to adapt and being outdoors in natural surroundings is always a joy.

Thanks for following,

Ken