chasing fall colors ......... brian lee
Fall has to be one of my favorite seasons to photograph. Otherwise marginally interesting locations are transformed by explosions of color into memorable scenes. And, already spectacular locations are even more so draped in a profusion of color.
This year was the second time I’d planned a vacation around photographing fall colors. In both cases, the planning started months in advance researching where to shoot and when. You’ve got to know where to go if you’re going to F8 and be there.
Being There
I always start my research with Robert Hitchman’s excellent Photograph America Newsletter. Published bi-monthly, each issue focuses on a specific shooting location, outlining the best spots to set up your tripod, the best times to visit, and recommended lodgings and eating spots. For this year’s trip, I used #19: East of the Sierras, #48: Great Basin National Park, and #8: Colorful Colorado. Photograph America’s website is at http://photographamerica.com/.
In addition to the Photograph America Newsletter, the Bishop Chamber of Commerce publishes a Guide to Fall Colors that gives detailed information on the best places for viewing fall colors.
With Robert Hitchman’s newsletter and the Guide to Fall Colors spread out on my desk, I brought up my mapping software on my PC (Microsoft MapPoint) and highlighted the locations I wanted to visit. We would start with a drive through Yosemite’s Tioga Pass to Lee Vining and then work our way South to Bishop for several days of shooting. From
Bishop, we would head East to visit Great Basin National Park, a quick stop at Arches National Park, and eventually to Telluride, CO.
When to Be There
The prior year, we had left the 3rd week of September and had been about a week early for the colors in the Eastern Sierras. However, we did catch them at their peak when we reached the Colorado Rockies about 10 days later. This year, I decided somewhat arbitrarily to leave a week later in hopes of catching the Eastern Sierras closer to their peak, albeit at the risk of arriving late for the colors in the Rockies.
The peak of the fall color season can vary by as much as three weeks and is nearly impossible to anticipate. If you have infinite flexibility with your schedule and can react on very short notice, Carol Leigh’s website (http://www.calphoto.com/fall.htm) chronicles the turning of the trees each year as reported by visitors. Email postings escalate into almost daily updates as the season progresses. It is a great source for first hand up to the minute status on the Easter Sierra colors. Lastly, the Bishop Visitors Bureau publishes a Fall Color Guide (http://www.bishopvisitor.com/activities/explorations.php3), but it is temporarily out of stock. On this trip, however, I was able to find a copy at Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop.
The Eastern Sierras
We worked our way south from Lee Vining on Highway 395 taking nearly 20 side roads up in to the mountains to the West. The further South we went and the higher the elevation, the brighter and warmer the colors became. Bishop, CA became our home base. I carried my laptop with its highlighted locations to cross reference with the GPS in my car.
One of the best spots we found was the Table Mountain Campground on the road to South Lake. From the parking area, a paved path led to a small stream, but it was the canopy of color over the path that caught my eye. When we first arrived, the area was in bright sunshine. The backlit colors were stunning, but impossible to capture. We returned late in the day allowing the surrounding mountains and the gathering clouds to cast their shadow over the area. It was still quite windy and many of the leaves were being blown off the trees. I ended up using ISO 400 in to shoot at f/11 for reasonable depth of field and a fast enough shutter speed to capture the fluttering leaves. The composition was limited by a large outhouse just outside the left of the frame.
Because the wind was knocking so many leaves off the trees, I wanted to capture a shot either showing the leaves falling or covering the ground. Unable to locate a suitable backdrop against which to highlight the falling leaves, I wandered further into the campsite and discovered a couple of large rocks partially covered with leaves. The rocks anchor the foreground and lead the eye into the frame and up to the brightly colored leaves.
Great Basin National Park
This newest and least visited National Park is located in Eastern Nevada. Rising 13,063 feet above the desert, it is visible from hundreds of miles. There is a brand new visitor’s center in Baker at the junction of highways 487 and 488. Snow the previous night had forced closure of the road leading to Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the park.
Once more, Robert Hitchman’s Photograph America newsletter proved an invaluable source of information, pointing the way to aspen groves that even the rangers staffing the visitor’s center knew nothing of.
South of the new visitor’s center is an unpaved road that follows Snake Creek back into a remote section of the park. The best groves are located near the end of the 12 mile long road. The road is well graded, but washouts have created a couple of spots where passenger cars might have some difficulty.
Near the end, the road passes through large stands of aspens. The skies were overcast, providing nice soft light. In many respects, this is ideal since excessive contrast is not a problem. The air was still, permitting the use of ISO 100 for this shot.
I was attracted to the meandering road that draws the eye upwards from the bottom of the frame to the aspens. I was able to drop out the dismal sky and the soft light permitted capturing the nice contrast of the white trunks with the yellow leaves.
Moab, UT
Our primary interest was in visiting Arches National Park. We managed to visit the common sites, but it is this shot that I liked the best. It was taken along the trail to Landscape Arch. I was immediately drawn to the twisted tree, but the composition didn’t work until I crouched down allowing it to frame the red rocks in the background.
I had been in touch with Steve by email in the weeks leading up to this trip. As it turned out, we arrived two days after Steve had departed Moab! He emailed me that he had found some great fall colors along the La Sal Mountain Loop Road. The road is located east of Moab off of highway 128 and is very scenic. However, the rain that preceded our arrival had dispensed with many of the aspen leaves.
Colorado Rockies
I don’t know if anything can compete with the display of fall colors in the Uncompahgre National Forest around Telluride, CO. Last year we caught the colors at peak, but also encountered snowstorms. Still, our brief bit of clear weather exposed entire hillsides completely covered with aspens. It is this total coverage in color that seems unique to the area. This year we arrived about a week late. Rain and wind had taken their toll and about half of the aspens were now bare. Still, some intense patches of color remained.
For much of the trip, I had tried to create a tighter composition with the white aspen trunks against a background filled with yellow leaves. To accomplish this shot, I needed to find a grove of aspens on a downhill slope (so the trunks in the foreground could be composed against the upper leaves of the trees behind them).
Robert Hitchman’s notes provide a myriad of locations of stunning aspen groves. My favorites are along the road behind Ophir and unpaved 625 Road that parallels highway 145 from near Ophir to the northeast. Along this road, the hillside slopes steeply downward away from the road and it was here that I found what I had been seeking (image at the beginning of this article).
I was very fortunate to catch as much of the Fall colors as I did. There were many more memorable shots, a gallery of which is at www.pbase.com/brianplee/fall2005.
Comment
Brian has been a member of our workshops and is a fine photographer. His planning and dedication to the search for color this fall and the essay presented here is a pleasure and honor for me to feature. I hope you enjoy and will benefit from his effort. ..... Thanks Brian!
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