A good way to enjoy fall color in Indiana is via a simple drive along the tree lined roadways, especially the backroads, where there are few houses or commercial facilities to spoil the views. The roads make good leading lines, but I do worry about having too much road in the images, since the most interesting subject is not the roadway.
Indiana Backroad Forest 1, October 24, 2023
It is not always possible to find a safe place to pull over off of the roadways, but where possible, one can get fall forest images right beside the road.
Indiana Backroad Forest 2, October 24, 2023Indiana Backroad Forest 3, October 24, 2023
Leaning House 1, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana
I first photographed this small, old, abandoned, leaning house in the fall of 2022. It is just off of the highway running through Bean Blossom and Morgantown, Indiana. My wife and I drove past it a number of times this fall (2023) and I stopped once to photograph it, while the trees still retained most of their fall foliage.
There are other homes and buildings nearby this house, which I tried to keep as much out of the photos as possible. That limited how I could compose these images.
Leaning House 2, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom IndianaLeaning House 3, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana
As I returned across the highway to my vehicle, a woman leaving the parking lot stopped to tell me that there had been more old structures where the parking lot and a store were now located. All those had been taken down to put in the store and parking lot. I wish I had been around to photograph those now missing structures.
As has become a tradition, my wife and I spent a couple of weeks in Indiana in the fall of 2023. We stay in a cabin just a short distance outside of Brown County State Park, a popular park for fall leaf peepers.
I visited the park. on a number of our days in the vicinity, for photography and even when traveling to another destination, we most often took a route through the park just to enjoy the beautiful fall color in the park.
Brown County State Park 1, October 24, 2023BCSP 2, October 24, 2023BCSP 3, October 24, 2023BCSP 4, October 24, 2023BCSP 5, October 24, 2023BCSP 6, October 24, 2023BCSP 7, October 24, 2023
All of the photos in this post were shot at or near one of the overlooks within the park.
We had an interesting encounter at this location. I noted a park visitor on an electric bike and I asked him about his bike. He was kind enough to give me much information about the bike, its features and even how much he paid for it. When my wife joined in the conversation, she discovered that the biker and she had attended the same high school. Even though they attended the school some years apart, they knew some of the same people that were students at that school. Such a small world consequence!
During the two weeks we were in Indiana this fall, we witnessed how fleeting the beauty of fall color can be.
Fleeting, Graying Fall
These images were made from the back balcony of our cabin one rainy, misty day. When we first arrived, those bare trees had leaves and the tree on the left was nearly all green with only slight color beginning to show at the extremities of one branch.
Rainy Gray, Fall DayCreeping GrayPeak, Past Peak, GoneRainy Day WoodsMisty Morning
Astute observers will note that these images are all of the same general scene with various compositions. The light rain, wetting the scene, brought out the color in the gray tree trunks, bare limbs and foliage, while at the same time muting the more distant trees.
One morning before going out for the day, I walked just less than a mile down the country roadway that went past our cabin. I knew there was an old barn in the neighborhood that I had passed by many times and never taken time to photograph.
Overgrown, iPhone PhotoFall Lean, iPhone PhotoAround the Bend, iPhone PhotoFading in the Fall 2, iPhone Photo
After conversion to black and white, I use selective colorization to bring out a little of the fall color in the nearby trees and a little color on the barn.
Fading in the Fall, iPhone Photo
Cypress Fall, iPhone Photo
We had friends with us for the first week of this fall visit to Indiana. I wanted to show them at least one covered bridge, since they had never seen one. They did not want to spend hours in a vehicle to get to an area with lots of covered bridges, but there was one small covered bridge just a few minutes away, one that I had seen on a previous visit to this area.
This bridge is located along a narrow country roadway, where there is limited space to pull over and turn around. Our friends were driving today. I routed them to the bridge along the best part of the access roadway, but turning around to get back out was a challenge for their minivan. Continuing without turning around would have presented other problems, if another vehicle came along going in the opposite direction.
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but here it is again: Backroads are often the best way to find uncommon beauty. Or maybe that should be common beauty, since it is all around us, but maybe taken for granted.
Stones Not RollingShorts and TallsForest FeetDown into the ForestFall Layers – Gamboge, Green and RussetIntertwined – Vine WeaveMossy ForkVine MessengersTreelinePink FallPortal
Is this a natural scar or a portal into another world? If a portal, would the other world be weirder than our’s today?
I found the T. C. Steele Historic Site marked on an online map of the area around my operational base in Indiana. I had never heard of T. C. Steele, so I did what I usually do in such situations. I searched for information on the internet and discovered that T. C. Steele (1847 – 1926) was an American Impressionist painter, and a member of a group known as the Hoosier Group of painters. I decided it worth while to check out this historic site.
The site is located at the actual home and studio in the countryside, where T.C and his wife lived and worked. There were maybe a couple of more visitors at the site, when I arrived at a fair sized, newish looking parking lot that even had an electric vehicle charging station.
As I walked towards the visitor center, I stopped at the wagon with iron rimmed, wood spoked wheels that served as T. C.’s portable studio. The wagon is a custom built, enclosed wagon with a wood burning stove in one corner. I made a few iPhone images of the interior and exterior, but none were sufficient to fully capture the utility and quaintness of the vehicle.
There is a modest fee, payable at the visitor center. There are scheduled tours that one can take to see the interior of the studios and there are hiking trails around the grounds, garden and through a portion of the Hoosier National Forest across the road from the site.
I elected to walk the grounds on my own, then take a trail through the forest.
Golden Tree, T. C. Steele Historic Site Grounds
The grounds and gardens are attractive and pleasant to walk through. I was impressed by the large hardwood trees on the site, but my attempts to photograph those trees and showcase the grounds did not work out well.
I chose a forest trail and hoped for better photographic results in the woods.
Yellow and Green, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021Woodland Path, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021
The sheer volume of objects in a forest make it difficult to get really unique images (at least for me). I went through my photos a number of times, thinking most were a lost cause, before finally beginning to choose a few to edit.
Deep Woods, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021Hillside, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021
Photos in forest can seem so much alike, that I get easily discouraged trying to capture the scenes.
Intimate Hillside, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021Green Profusion or Intimate Forest, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021
In the end it seems that forest photos are mostly about colors, textures and light, since most of the objects in the photos are so much alike. I struggle to come up with good titles for images, especially the forest ones. I could not decide which title was best for the image above, so I gave it two.
Woodland Creek, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021Leaves, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021Path to the Light, Hoosier National Forest at T. C. Steele Historic Site, Indiana, Fall 2021
I returned to the old outlook tower that I found earlier, where a trailhead into the Charles C. Deam Wilderness originated. This time I was prepared to hike with my DSLR.
Into the WildernessSplit DecisionParty’s (long) OverMossy LogThe Light BeneathRed GoldAge SpotsForest LightCommiserationRavine Shadows
