Spoiled for Choice

Even though I wasn’t burning to get out during this fall season, I did a few times and it was pretty darn great. Because I live where I do, I have a ton of choices for outdoor stuff. As a matter of fact, I always tell people that if you aren’t very outdoorsy, you’ll hate it here. There’s not much else to do except hit one of our dozen bars on the main street, but I don’t recommend that as a lifestyle choice. Sometimes though, that choice can be paralyzing and I just can’t decide where to go. Overcoming that took a little practice and now I just decide quickly and head out. This time to a piece of the Wood Lake segment of the Ice Age Trail that I’d not walked before. Other bits I have, but not here so off I went.

My somewhat blasé attitude made me look more carefully for scenes and slices that were a bit different than some fall photography, or at least mine and so that leaf up there caught my attention. It’s a birch leaf I believe and I really liked not only its position, caught in the trunk like that, but the subtle shading of yellows and green. Most single leaf shots are maples and red ones if possible. But the subdued palette and soft light works here and I quite like it and that I made a bit of an effort to work the scene. The leaf is a little over my head and the slope dropped down pretty steeply right at the edge of the trail so there wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver, but I got it.

Here’s another little slice that caught my attention as I walked along. Roots and leaves across the trail with some lovely backlight. A little distraction removal made this even better. I wish I had wider depth of field here, but I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. Maybe next year.

You guys know I habitually look down to the ground for macro subjects, but this time of year makes me look up a lot. I got a little dizzy spinning around gazing up into this incredible and majestic Red Maple. Finding compositions and arrangements with this kind of thing is challenging, but with a tree so perfect in its color and companions, I didn’t mind the head rush.

I don’t see too many Reds that reach this size. With this species most of what I find are small trees, pretty spindly and with parallel branches pointing straight up. Nothing like the character and age of this beauty. Part of what I wanted with the arrangement was to get the canopy to fill the frame, but then I noticed a vignette of green from neighboring trees and I really like the effect. A bit of blue sky completes the rainbow.

So many scenes made me stop and marvel. Just soaking it all in, even if I didn’t take a photo. Sometimes the balance was off or there was just too much in the scene that made it too complicated or cluttered, but this one feels pretty good. It has a through-line and a nice balance with those to big trees on either side. I got the tripod out and moved around a bit before deciding on this. Another thing I did was turn on in-camera cropping to better finesse the composition. I still get the whole frame as part of the RAW file, but I find that utilizing cropping scenarios in camera helps me visualize and fine-tune in the field.

I usually will underexpose slightly so as not to blow out the highlights; I can always pull up detail in the shadows. Combined with using selective edits via masks in Lightroom or Photoshop, I can even out broad luminosity to make for a more realistic photo. At least I hope so.

This bit of trail winds near a couple of small lakes, which was one of the reasons I decided on walking here. This is one of them – it’s really more of a pond and had a strange little campsite next to it complete with fire ring and a basket of fake flowers in an old lawn tractor tire nailed to a tree. Very odd indeed, but it was worth taking a look. The wind never settled for a smooth reflection, but you take what you get, right?

So back to the trail and oh it was glorious –

I tried to choose scenes that a viewer could get into. It’s hard going from 3D to 2D and sometimes, I fear, without the first-hand experience, it doesn’t translate. Maybe it does. But you know me and a trail shot and backlighting. Gotta try.

And now a look at that typical red leaf we love to find. Find I did and in this lovely patch of still vibrantly green leaves. I think it’s a type of violet, but I’m not sure. And before you ask, yes I readjusted the leaf to this position, but it was here just not posed so nicely.

Well that was a terrific walk in the woods I did during the fall. Leaving on Monday for Tennessee so I hope I can get a few more good shots from that workshop. Oh and another Wisconsin autumn woods ramble ended on an encounter so special I can hardly keep the butterflies out of my stomach merely thinking about it. Stay tuned.