I continued to wander about in a portion of the Rio Grande National Forest in the early morning looking for whatever caught my eye, attempting to get a few decent photographs.
Evergreen surrounded by Aspens. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/400s, f/11, ISO 800.
I made a couple of compositions with this evergreen surrounded by the tall Aspens, but I do not think that the resulting images convey what I was seeing or feeling here.
The same is true of this photograph of the remnant of a burned tree trunk. I tried multiple compositions here and I just could not capture the scene the way it moved me. I think the lack of light on the burned out tree trunk made it too difficult to capture the emotions this stirred in me as I viewed it; although, this image does look better when viewed on a large screen.
A little later, I came back to the burned out tree trunk and shot it from a different point of view and got what I think is a better image with it surrounded by fallen, weathered Aspen trunks.
I walked from my campsite a little after 7AM, going down the utility right of way for a short distance, then ventured into the forest for a morning shoot. A good thing about shooting in a fall forest is that one does not have to be in the woods before daybreak, unless one has a definite location in mind that requires one to be on location at a specific time. It seems that the morning light in a forest can be good from early morning until almost noon, or even later if it is overcast. So just wandering about in the forest looking for photographic opportunities, getting a later than pre-sunrise start is fine.
I’m making so many images of the tree trunks and wide angle forest views, that I’m again thinking that these kind of photographs are getting redundant, so I spend more time looking for little details, like the small, colorful plants on the forest floor that are highlighted by morning sunbeams filtering through the forest.
Fall Forest Floor. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm (before crop), 1/125s, f/11, ISO 1600.
Still I can’t resist getting starbursts (this one is too large and distracting) through the tree trunks
For landscape images it is best to make simple images with no distracting clutter. In a forest it is virtually impossible to avoid clutter. Trees and grasses grow in a mass of seeming disorder. Limbs and twigs stick out everywhere, the forest floor is covered with all kinds of natural debris, grasses and low growing plants, fallen trees and limbs. Still, I try to carefully consider what is in my composition. Sometimes I can exclude something that I consider particularly distracting, many times I just have to accept what is there and try to compose so that a viewer can get the intended message.
Star Burst Aspens. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 26mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 200.
Sometimes, isolating details, either via zooming in or cropping in post processing, works to eliminate clutter, but context may be lacking, if that matters.
Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 250Cradled. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 500.Forest Floor and Shadows. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 250.
The chaotic nature of a forest may be the message.
I ventured back into the forest on the morning of September 24, 2020, initially taking a similar path to the route I had taken the previous afternoon, wanting to see how the light and forest scenes would differ in the morning light.
Sometimes I photographed essentially the same scenes, which looked a little different with the light coming from a different direction.
Aspen Trunks and Shadows. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 34mm, 1/8s, f/11, ISO 200.
There is something magical about being in a forest with sunlight filtering through the leaves and the tree trunks creating bands of shadow and light and
Evergreen with Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 46mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 2500.Forest Light. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 48mm, 1/400s, f/11, ISO 2500.
fallen tree trunks creating an array of geometrical shapes.
With all the big trees, back lighted leaves and starburst effects, it is easy to overlook the myriad small details. There are often interesting little things that make good images.
Aspen Leaf on Log. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 2000.Aspen Leaf on Log. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 2000.
The juxtaposition of color and texture in small items can be as intriguing as a wide angle image of the forest.
Grain and Veins. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 200.
Autumn is my favorite time of the year. I like the colors of fall and the crispness and smell of fall. Yet it is also a strong reminder of our mortality. I’m wondering, do we become more colorful in our autumn or just wrinkled and weathered?
In an opening in the forest on a steep slope, I photographed the distant mountainsides below clouds that provided shadows and moving spotlights on the massive forest.
Much of the mountainsides were covered with beetle killed evergreens. A scattering of color within the mass of dead, grey trees caught my eye as they were highlighted by light breaking through the cloud cover.
There are a few green evergreens and a scattering of Aspens within the mass of dead trees. I wonder how this will evolve with time. Will Aspens replace the evergreens or will the evergreens somehow evolve to resist the beetles?
It was getting late in the day, there would be no golden hour light here due to mountains blocking the late day light and in any case I did not want to try to find my way through the forest in the dark, hiking back to my campsite. So I began to work my way back up the slope. Taking my time and stopping whenever I thought I might get an interest photo.
I continued my stroll through the Rio Grande National Forest just off of US 380, hoping to get interesting photographs within the forest.
Near and Far. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 40mm, 1/500s, f/11, ISO 640.
I shot the image above with the near trees on one side of FSR 380 and the far trees on the far side of the roadway. There was increasing cloudiness, which I hoped did not indicate a late day rain storm.
Aspen Trunks and Evergreens. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/3s, f/11, ISO 64.
One can find an infinite number of ways to shoot the Aspen trunks, which is both good and bad. When is enough, enough? And when do these images become so repetitive as to be boring? Is there really anything unique in these images?
A few recently fallen trees broke up the vertical pattern of the tree trunks.
Bent and Broken. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 28mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 500.Diverse Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 31mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 500.Trunk Line. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 1600.
Even within a dense forest, I noted that sometimes by standing in the right place, I could see an almost linear line of tree trunks. Of course, I had to crop the wide angle view to show what caught my eye.
Early Fall Aspen Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 1600.
As I worked my way around the edge of a high ridge in the forest, I began to find more fallen trees, which made various geometric patterns on or near the forest floor.
Standing and Fallen. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-24mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 1600.Forest Floor. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 2000.
After few more minutes of walking from the end of the ridge I came to an opening in the forest along a steep slope with good views of forested mountainsides. I could tell that the sun would drop below a mountain side before the golden hour, but the moving clouds resulted in highlights of the distant fall color as the shadows moved across the mountainsides.
I began my late day photography in the Rio Grande National Forest by walking briefly through the forest near my campsite before crossing FSR 380 into the forest on the opposite side of the roadway.
The first image here is a shot down FSR 380, just past my campsite. It is obvious from this image that there are some Aspens in peak fall color, while many others are just beginning to show signs of changing from green to yellow.
Aspens tend to grow straight and tall, self pruning as they gain height, but some grow in strange ways, such as this one on the right side in the image above, with the loop at top, where it turns sideways.
Aspen trunks have always fascinated me. They are usually tall, slender and grayish-white with hints of green and sometimes other colors, with smooth to rough trunks with dark black marks, where limbs have fallen off as the trees matures.
A forest is also a good place to get a starburst effect; but I think the one in the image above is too large and distracting. A smaller aperture would have given a smaller, sharper starburst.
Leaves and Trunks. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 400.Signatures. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 800.
I do not know what made the curved traces on the two trees in this image, but they are remarkably like data plots that I interpreted as a part of my work before my retirement. I posted this image on LinkedIn, where I knew others would see those traces as I did, and as of this writing it has received 15,275 views, 252 likes and 56 comments.
Under the Canopy. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 800.
The small Aspens in full color beneath the much taller ones were eye-catching.
Under and Over. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 800.Leaning into Fall. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 60mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 800.Aspen Sky. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 50mm, 1/500s, f/11, ISO 400.
A skyward view beneath the tall Aspens can be awesome, especially if the Aspens are in full fall color, with the yellow leaves set against a blue sky. There is a full range of color in the images here, since “peak” color is not yet here.
Even without the peak color, the aspen trunks with green and yellow foliage and scattered evergreens beneath them provide beautiful fall forest scenes.
Continuing my morning photo shoot, I walked up FSR 250 towards my parking spot, using the roadway as a leading line.
The fall color development in the Aspens is not uniform. It can be spotty, with whole groves of changed trees within a forest of trees that have not changed at all. In the image above most of the trees on the right are well advanced in their fall foliage, while those on the left are just beginning to change.
Even though I did not walk very far through the forest to intersect the roadway below my parking place, the roadway went much farther through the forest to get to the same point downhill of here.
Concluding my morning shoot along FSR 250, I drove westward, stopping at a pullout, that I had made note of my second day here, shortly before getting to the junction with FSR 380.
I walked past a metal gate into an open area scouting for a good vantage point from which to shoot a red top mountain with the forest in the foreground. I had brought out my wide angle lens, but I soon decided that I needed to use a long lens to get the photo that I wanted. Leaving my tripod on top of a flat top boulder in the open area, I retrieved my 80-400mm lens and walked back to the the tripod.
This photo is the final result:
Red Mountain and Red Aspens. Nikon D850, Nikon 80-400mm @ 80mm, 1/200s, f/16, ISO 800.
It was not the best time of the day for the typical light that landscape photographers prefer, but it was overcast and the mountain top was occasionally highlighted in sunlight when there was a break in the clouds and I like the color layers in this image.
I continued to FSR 380 then to FSR 243 and to its end. There were a couple of vehicles and a horse trailer already here, but no one around.
I was waffling about what to do this afternoon, but I was not very energetic. After a light lunch, I read via my Kindle, then took a nap on the bench seat.
The morning had begun sunny and partly cloudy, but the afternoon became heavily overcast with intermittent light rain.
I heard another vehicle pull up, then I saw someone in hunting gear walking around looking at my vehicle. I moved to the front driver’s seat, opened the door and chatted with one of the two hunters. One remained in their truck, sheltered from the light rain.
They were from upstate New York and had been coming here for years during hunting season. It seemed a long way to drive for a hunt, but I was told that there were no similar places for hunting in upstate New York.
The hunters eventually left and I lazed in my vehicle for the rest of the afternoon and camped here overnight, being greatly tempted to photograph the creek and waterfalls, that I had explored the previous day, the next morning.
After breakfast this morning, I decided to drive on FSR 250 back towards Platoro Reservoir. I found a convenient pull out and entered the forest on the south side of the roadway. I wandered around in the forest shooting photographs in the mid-morning light.
This unfortunate Aspen shows damage from the violent storm that blew through here in early September. Readers might also note many downed branches in some of my photographs in this area.
On Saturday, September 19, 2020 we photographed just off of a roadway not too far from Platoro Reservoir. I made a few shots with the reservoir and mountainside behind. This one is my favorite:
Aspen, Platoro Reservoir and Mountain. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/400s, f/16, ISO 125.
It takes considerable thought making compositions within a forest. Even though there is natural beauty all around, it is not as easy as one might think to make an interesting photograph with so much around that can be distracting or unappealing in an image and, after a while, one begins to think that the compositions are too common and repetitive.
I found the contrast of the small evergreens among the tall, rugged Aspens interesting.
Fall Decor. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 800.Fall Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/400s, f/16, ISO 800.
And again I found boulders with fallen Aspen leaves decorating them in the forest.
Forest Boulders. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 100.Aspens and Boulder. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 800.
Near the roadway I found a number of Aspens that had started growing horizontally, maybe from some early life damage, but that had turned to grow upward toward the sky.
As I later discovered, it was not unusual to find such curved shapes in the Aspen trunks. I’m sure there must be a logical explanation for this unusual growth pattern.
I spotted a small shimmering Aspen tree that really stood out against the darker surroundings. I included the small tree as a highlight in a wide angle image. When reviewing that photograph, I decided to crop the image, making it more apparent that the small tree was the primary object of interest .
I made a few close up images of the yellow Aspen leaves late in the day. I had brought only a wide angle lens on this shoot. The wide angle close ups always include much more than I wanted in the images, so I cropped them during editing to pick out the portions that I was trying to capture.
It was late in the day and the sun was rapidly sinking in the sky, but I managed to get a few images with weak back light, then a few more with dispersed light. The three presented here are the ones that I like best.
Forest Road. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 200.
