Tag: Fall

Indiana, Fall 2020, Brown County State Park Part 2 – Ogle Lake

After stoping at a number of pull outs along the main roadway in Brown County State Park, I continued to Ogle Lake and hiked the loop trail that goes around the lake.

At the end of the lake nearest the parking lot, I went off the trail down to the waters edge to get this image:

Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana

I walked along the edge of the lake towards the north until I got back to the official trail, where I stopped to photograph reflections in the lake.

Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana

There were not many others here today, so it was not difficult to keep a safe distance from others and I only had to standby occasionally to let others clear out of my compositions.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana

At least a couple of hikers asked what I was photographing.  The first to ask seemed to think that there must be something special that was not apparent along the trail to photograph.  The second was a photographer with a long lens.  He was photographing birds and thought I must be doing the same.  I guess we all have our own thoughts about what is worthy of photographing.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana

As I rounded the end of the lake and began to hike along the south side, I noted some very nice reflections on north side of the lake.

Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park

The reflections in the lake seemed to me to be the best images that I’ve gotten so far and I struggled to make interesting compositions for the rest of the hike.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana
Grafiti Tree, Brown County State Park, Indiana

That’s it for the Ogle Lake area,

Ken

 

Brown County State Park, Indiana, Fall 2020, Part 1

I visited Brown County State Park on the second day of our Fall of 2020 visit to Indiana, where I photographed near a number of pull outs along roadways through the park and while hiking a couple of trails in the park.

This post will consist of the photos made near the roadway.

Dew Drops and Grass, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Indiana Fall, Brown County State Park
Brown County State Park, Indiana
Big Fall Leaves, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Autumn Gold, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Yellow and Green, Brown County State Park, Indiana
A Trio of Fall Maple Leaves, Brown County State Park, Indiana

Thanks for following,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2020, Around the Cabin, Part 1

In 2019 we were in Indiana the third week of October, which was at least one week early for the peak of fall color.  So we scheduled our 2020 visit for the last week of October, which was projected to be the peak time for fall color there.  Wrong!  The peak came one or two weeks earlier in 2020, then storms the week prior to our visit, removed leaves from most of the mature trees.  Fortunately, there were still a few trees, mostly the ones in the forest understory, with fall foliage remaining.

We stayed in a cabin a few miles from Brown County State Park, which is a popular place for fall foliage viewing.  The first day in the cabin, I walked around the wooded area on which the cabin was located, making images of the remaining fall color.

Fall Woods, Indiana

It was windy and I was shooting handheld, so I used much higher ISO than I liked to get a sufficiently high shutter speed to freeze the motion of the leaves.  Unfortunately, this results in noisy photographs.

Fall Leaves, Indiana

I did what I could to reduce the noise, but there are tradeoff in this process.  Too much noise reduction makes the fuzzy images even more fuzzy.

Fall Woods, Indiana

The high ISO can also result in blown out highlights in portions of images.  I did not use graduated neutral density filters, since these are problematic in wooded areas with no clearcut line between bright areas and darker area in a composition.  I did apply software ND effects, which helps, but software filters are not as good as real physical filters.

Fall Woods, Indiana

To avoid the blown out highlights, I sometimes eliminated the sky in compositions and sometimes cropped out as much of the blown out portions of the images as I could, while trying to maintain a “reasonable” composition.

Fall Woods, Indiana

I was not pleased with many of my photos, even most of the ones that I elected to process, due to these conditions.

Fall Woods, Indiana
Fall Woods, Indiana
Fall Woods, Indiana
Mossy Log, Indiana Fall

And it did not help that I missed the peak color.

Continued later,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020 PM, Part 3

By the time this final post, covering my fall visit to the Rio Grande National Forest, is published it will be late spring of 2021.  It would have been good to have been able to publish all of the fall photographs in the fall, but it takes time to review and edit so many photographs and there are always other trips, events and personal matters that delay getting posts prepared.

Maybe I should take fewer photographs?  But photography of natural places is my hobby and I get to do too little of it as is, so I will continue to make as many photos like these as often as I can get away to do so.

Fall Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Red and Green Leaf on Log. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 3200.

 

Dark Red. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Fall Forest Roadway. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/500s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Leaf on Log. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Leaves and Moss on Stump. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Leaves and Stump. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Trapped. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 6400.

I’ll finish with a final photograph that I think is appropriate for wrapping up this trip.

Heart Tree. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 6400.

The heart shaped scar on this tree appears to be natural and not one of the many carved ones that I encountered.

As soon as I publish this, I will begin preparations for another trip to begin in a few days.  I have much to do and still have to select a primary destination.  Maybe by next year, I will even be posting photos from that trip.  (I still have other events in the queue to work through before getting to anything new)!

Thanks for following, stay well and safe,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020 PM, Part 2

Again, mostly photographs and few words.

Shelter. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Trunk Trio. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 52mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Hint of Fall, B&W with selective colorization. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 400.
Sanctuary. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Forest Road and Barren Aspens, B&W with selective colorization. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 52mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Advanced Fall, B&W with selective colorization. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Advanced Fall. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Hanging On, B&W with selective colorization. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Stump with moss and leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 32mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 3200.

Just one comment to wrap up this post.  Viewers will note that I’ve include color versions of a few images that were then converted to black and white with selective colorization to add emphasis.

Stay tuned for the wrap up for my September 2020 Rio Grande National Forest visit.

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020 PM, Part 1

For our late day shoot, we decided to drive back into a higher elevation portion of the forest. I’ll refrain from using too many words to wrap up the final shoot of my last day here, so these last several posts will consist of mostly photographs.

Aspen Fall.  Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2500.
Aspen Leaf and Evergreen. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 1600.
Leaf and Bark. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 320.
Fall Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 1600.
Leaf Hoard. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Leaf and Bough. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Golden Forest Floor. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 26mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Gnarly. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 32mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 2000.
Soft Landing. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 3200.

To be continued,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020, Mid-Day, Part 2

I continued to shoot, under the overcast sky, in an upper elevation Aspen forest, where the ground was covered with fall leaves and an abundance of old logs and stumps of fallen trees.

Mossy Logs and Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 45mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 800.
Glory Fades. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 1000.
Death in the Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 28mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 1000.

The stump above reminds me of the skeleton skull of a longhorn steer that one might find in a desert setting.

Tree Stump and Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 34mm, 1/400s, f/11, ISO 1250.
Fading Away. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 1250.
Old Stump and Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 45mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 1250.
Colorful Forest Floor. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/640s, f/11, ISO 1250.

I found a batch of young evergreens among the large Aspens decorated by fallen Aspen leaves.

Evergreens and Aspens. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 58mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 1250.
Small Evergreen with Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 1250.

This wraps up the mid-day exploration and shoot and I want to remind viewers that the images look much better on the website or on Flickr (if posted there) and on a large screen, rather than in an e-mail or small mobil device screen.

Thanks for following and stay tuned for the final late day shoot,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020, Mid-Day, Part 1

After our morning shoot, my son wanted to explore some of the other Forest Service Roads nearby, so we drove along several of those and into higher elevations, where most of the trees had already lost most of their leaves.

It was an overcast day and the dispersed light was good for photographing in the forest.

Aspen Forest, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 500.

With the trees mostly bare, the forest floor was covered in fallen leaves.

A vertical shot with a wide angle, standing to the side of a batch of Aspens, made those trees appear at an angle, rather than vertical.

Aspen Forest, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 500.

I found many stumps of old fallen trees with the roots sticking out at various angles that made interesting subjects.

Gnarly Stump and Fall Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 45mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 500.
Old Leaf Catcher. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 36mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 500.

And old logs covered with fallen Aspen leaves.

Fall. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 800.
Stump, Log, Limb, Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 35mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 800.
Death and Renewal. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 800.
The Cradle. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 48mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 800.
Weathered Stump and Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 38mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 800.
Mossy Stump and Aspen Leaves. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 28mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 800.

To be continued,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020, AM, Part 3

Looking for small details in a vast forest, sometimes one finds natural abstracts.

Stump Abstract, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 5000.

This weathered tree stump with map like contours caught my eye.  Here is a black and white conversion:

Stump B&W, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 5000.

The Aspen leaf in this photo had not quite completed its color transformation, before it fell to rest upon a mossy bed.

Yellow and Green, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/1250s, f/11, ISO 5000.
Aspen Leaves on Mossy Stump, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Forest floor, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 3200.

I prefer to photograph these little details as I find them; but sometimes I’m tempted to move things around.  I did not move anything in the photo above; but I can’t help but wonder, if I should have.  Should I have removed the blade of grass pointing at the Aspen leaf in the middle?  Or does that blade of grass serve as a useful pointer in this photograph?  Would this image be better, if I had cleared away some of the debris around the edges or the scattered leaves, leaving just the single leaf in the center?  What about that little twig resting on the stump to the left of the center leaf?

I have no objection to “posing” a natural scene for artistic purpose and I have removed man made items from natural scenes and I’m quite ok with this.  I’ve occasionally removed a twig, a fallen tree limb or a blade of grass, if I thought those were distracting in a scene. But nature is not perfect, so will “cleaning” a scene make it unreal?  Is unreal ok in this sense?  No one would know the scene has been modified, if not so informed by the photographer.  Is it acceptable to “manufacture” a natural scene?

Red and Green, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 800.
Aspen Leaf, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 65mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 800.

And I will wrap up this portion of this morning’s photos with one final forest image, which I just noted this morning was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page.

Forest Shadows, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 800.

Stay tuned for the rest of today’s story,

Ken

Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, September 26, 2020, AM, Part 2

Aspen Leaf on Stump. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 6400.

This post is a continuation of photography in the Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado during the final morning of photography this September.

Aspen Leaf. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 3200.

Many of my photos from today are of more of the small details seen in a forest.

Forest Spotlight. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/640s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Aspen Leaves, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 3200.
Aspen Leaves, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 35mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 250.
Aspen Leaf on Mossy Log, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 26mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 5000.
Aspen Leaf on Mossy Stump, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 5000.
Aspen Leaf on Mossy Log, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 5000.

Stay tuned for mid-day and afternoon of our final day in the Rio Grande National Forest,

Ken