Returning from one of my morning shoots, I made a wrong turn on my way back to the cabin and accidentally found another great place to shoot fall color along an Indiana backroad. I returned to this backroad later for a morning shoot.
Whenever I think the ordinary forest scene photography is getting too repetivive and boring, I sometimes resort to ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) images. These are fun to do and there are no complicated rules of composition to try adhering to. Just use whatever aperture you like, a suitable ISO to avoid over exposure and a slow shutter speed (I usually use 1 second) and move the camera when the shutter is open. I think vertical movement yields the best results for vertical things, like trees, but other motions can be experimented with. Varying the speed at which the camera is moved yields different effects.
I suppose some might think these ICM images are similar and can become monotonous, too; but these are such fun to do that it can become addictive. These images were all created with a Nikon DSLR with a 24-70mm lens, but there are apps for phone cameras that allow such images to be created with your phone camera.
This concludes this series on fall leaves in an Indiana creek. I expect readers are breathing a sigh of relief, but trust me the photos presented in this series is a subset of many more and since there are infinitely many ways to photograph this subject matter, it would be possible to continue such a theme forever. [And maybe I will do more in the future].
At first it was just a pretty leaf lying on a mossy rock that got my attention, but the more I looked at it the more it looked like an elegant female model posing like a naturalist in an outdoor environment. (Maybe I had been wandering alone in that creek bed too long).
Looking for ideas for a title, I found that fallen leaves are refered to as “leaf litter” or “tree litter”. Is it really appropriate to describe such natural beauty as “litter”? Can’t we show some respect for these fallen, natural beauties?
I set out one morning with a National Forest hiking path as a destination. When I arrived, there was a crew working at the limited area parking access. The young ranger in charge said they were just wrapping up setting posts for a kiosk and would be out of my way in a few minutes. So I drove on down the road to kill a few minutes, took a side road, stopped beside a creek and went down into the creek bed to look around. There was not much water in the creek, just a narrow stream with a few shallow puddles. There were many fallen leaves in the creek, which looked like good photographic subjects, so I returned to my vehicle, retrieved my camera and spent some time photographing those leaves.
Another year and another fall in Indiana. This year was much different than the previous few. Drought and a warm fall resulted in sporadic color change in the local trees and forests.
It was just after mid-October, when we arrived in Indiana, a time when the local forest fall foliage would normally be highly apparent. This year many trees were still fully green, a few had already changed almost completely and other were just exhibiting the seasonal change in color.
The “peak”, if it can be called that this year, came the first week in November and it was muted, compared to a “normal” year. I’m afraid this will become the “normal” in the future as climate change, which is not a “hoax”, continues its rapid advance.
For these ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) abstract images in a forest, one can include the sky or exclude it. I find that I prefer those images with the sky limited or excluded, which usually requires cropping the image in post processing.
The direction of the light is also a factor in these image. Side light produces alternating light and dark patterns across the image, which I tend to prefer.
I made many other iPhone images this rainy day, but these are representative of all the scenes.
I knew I could not return to my favorite camping area, which would be too muddy to get into and out of, so I went to the more popular, and usually crowded, Buffalo Gap Grassland BLM camping area on the north side of the park, thinking it might be more easily ingressed and egressed.
My assessment was partially correct. Going up the slight incline to the camping area along the badlands drop-off was easy, as the roadway was mostly rocky with only a few mud holes. However the roadway, where the campsites are set aside was already rutted by many camper passing through and the road has a slight tilt towards the west and my vehicle was fishtailing as I eased along it in 4 wheel drive. The campsites are just off of the roadway and there was a real danger of vehicles sliding into campers parked along the roadway. Indeed, campers watched carefully, as any vehicle passed by. I always swung as far away from the campers as possible before passing. As soon as I found an empty, flat campsite, I pulled in and breathed a sigh of relief. This site was at the base of a hill and I, too, watched with trepidation as any vehicle came down that hillside.
The next morning, I considered going to other scenic places within a few hours drive from the Badlands, but the wet weather pattern covered a large area of the country. So I decided it best to cut this trip short and head for home.
So far my visits to the Badlands National Park have not worked out in the best way for my photography intent, even though the scenery is fantastic.