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.
After my morning shoot near my campsite, I drove westerly along FSR 380. There were several possible campsites that I had noted from passing through this route earlier in the week. I drove past the first couple of sites to a large open unrestricted camping area that seemed to be popular with hunters. There were maybe a few places in that site that might have worked, but it was hilly, uneven, partially muddy and crowded with hunters. So I backtracked to the only other suitable site in a utility right of way.
Rio Grande National Forest Campsite. iPhone photograph.
There was plenty of room here for my vehicle and my son and DIL’s vehicle and trailer. They were planning to meet me here tomorrow. So I put out a couple of cones to mark an area for them, to discourage any other campers or hunters from moving in.
The view from the Sportsmobile awning window. iPhone photograph.
As I was mounting my solar panels on the top of my vehicle, a cowboy on horseback, herding a couple of cows, approached from a little side road into the forest. He stopped to ask if I had seen any cattle nearby. When I said no, he then asked if I was a hunter. When I told him I was here only for photography, he told me about one of his relatives that was a professional photographer who traveled around the world making photographs.
After the cowboy moved on, I noted a few passing vehicles slow to look over my campsite, then move on. Sometime later a pickup truck pulled up next to me, the driver asking if I was staying or leaving. He was a hunter looking for a campsite for he and his son, who was to meet him later. We chatted for awhile, then he went a short distance down the side road and set up his camp there. He stopped by again sometime later to chat again and his son happened to drive up as he was there. They soon moved on to their campsite and I did not see them again.
Late in the afternoon, I took my camera into the woods to explore the area.
I had some difficult getting good images during this outing. Part of this might have been due to my thinking that my photographs in the forest were becoming too much alike and in trying to do something different, I was just not very successful. When I got around to reviewing my images from this afternoon, I initially passed over nearly all of them, considering them not worthy of processing. Later, I decided to revisit those images, taking a closer look at each. I still rejected most of them, but I salvaged a few mediocre ones.
Forest Light, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 200.In the Forest, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @24mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 200.In the Forest, Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @14mm (before crop), 1/125s, f/11, ISO 200.Fallen Aspen leaves on old mossy log.
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.
Driving westerly along FSR 380, I came to a vacant campsite just off of the roadway. This was a site that I had noted, when passing by on my trip into Del Norte earlier in the week. The forested area around this campsite looked promising for photography, so I pulled into the site.
Rio Grande National Forest Campsite. iPhone photograph.Forest Campsite. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/60s, f/11, ISO 200.
As I was walking around the camping area, I heard a loud, raucous bird, that seemed angry about something. Thinking that I might be in danger of being attacked by an irate bird, I turned to look for the bird, catching a brief glimpse of it as it flew past me. It crashed hard into the side of my vehicle and fell to the ground. It was a beautifully colored woodpecker, which moved a little as I kneeled to inspect it. I hoped it was just dazed and would recover consciousness and be ok, so I gently picked it up and placed it in the wooded area nearby the campsite.
Kamikaze Woodpecker. iPhone photograph.
Unfortunately, it did not recover. I can only surmise that it objected to the red color of my vehicle or saw its reflection in the vehicle and thought it was another bird intruding upon its territory, or it was giving me a warning buzz that ended tragically.
Such events always make me wonder about the uncertainties of life and the random convergence of events leading to such tragedies. Would this have happened, if I had not parked here at this specific time or had I slightly modified my parking spot or backed into the campsite rather than pulling forward into it?
I just hope that I am not the cause of any other tragic events.
As I walked towards a valley overview for early morning photography, I went past my neighbor campers, a middle age couple, that I had correctly assumed to be hunters, as they prepared to head out on their morning hunt. We chatted briefly, before I continued on my short hike over the open, frosty, grassy area.
It was also a little breezy, so I had to use higher ISO than desirable (noise increases with increasing ISO) to get a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the grass and/or other vegetation in the images.
After the golden morning light was gone from the distant mountain tops, I continued to shoot as the shadows retreated from the broad meadow.
I began working my way down into the meadow towards the sinuous drainages running running across it, with the intent of using the drainage as leading lines, stopping along the way to shoot a few images of the sunlight sparkling in the morning frost. I was largely unsuccessful at capturing the sparkle with my lens of choice this morning, although I did not try to get really up close with the lens, so maybe I should not put the failure on the lens.
The beetle killed evergreens on the mountainsides made for much unattractiveness in the scenes here and I’ve tried to minimize that impact in my images.
Eventually satisfied that I had achieved as much as I could this morning, I headed back to my vehicle for coffee and a light breakfast, before heading on along FSR 380 looking for my next campsite.
