I made one final excursion into Brown County State Park near Nashville, Indiana in the early morning hours the first week in November 2025 to wrap up my fall photography for 2025. My first stop was at Ogle Lake to shoot the sunrise sky.
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.
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.
Just before sunset time, I went to my pre-chosen location for sunset photography in Badlands National Park. It was heavily overcast and the prospects for golden hour light on the geological features in the park did not look promising.
Nevertheless, I made a few images prior to sunset time, hoping to maybe duplicate some compositions at golden hour.
