A Vibrant Autumn

Let's face it... my lousy health keeps me at home more often than not so I don't get out much anymore. When I do get out, I try to make the most of it. This past Saturday was no exception as Sheila and I drove down to Rutland for a train show. The drive down there was the start of a very busy day for us beginning with the train show, followed by meeting friends at a local watering hole in town and then ending around a campfire with the grandchildren, Sheila's daughter and Sheila's parents. It was to be a busy day.

This day out started with a drive through the mountains and the Green Mountain National Forest on our way to Rutland. What we saw was something I have not seen in ten years or so... absolutely amazing vibrant autumn colors!

We first noticed the vibrancy of the colors when we were approaching the highest point on Interstate 89 around Randolph. At that highest point, the colors were bright and vibrant. I suspected this would just be a short preview of what was in store for us as we cut through the Green Mountain National Forest passing over a mountain range.

This color we were seeing on Interstate 89 was something I have not seen in quite some time. It seems like the last ten years of fall colors have been quite dull, looking sort of "rusty" rather than vibrant. This year is exceptionally different, however, with brightly saturated and vibrant yellows, reds, oranges contrasting deeply with the evergreens.

I had hoped we could pull off the road in a few areas so I could shoot some static photos of the colorful landscape. Unfortunately, the pass through the Green Mountain National Forest, where the most beautiful color was located, was one big road construction zone. 

Vermont is still in the process of rebuilding all the roads which were completely washed out and effectively destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene more than three years ago. Bridges were washed away... homes were washed away... and roads were swallowed, never to appear when the floodwaters of the raging rivers receded. Now there are roadways for our drive to Rutland but there were no shoulders nor any areas to pull off to shoot some photos. Consequently, we drove straight through to Rutland, without stopping, while l tried to shoot sharp photos from the passenger seat in a moving car. This was not the ideal method of shooting beautiful landscape photos!

Landscape photographers are methodical. They take their time. They study a scene while taking in color, tone, light, shadow, leading lines, composition, points of interest, and much more which only comes from years of education and experience. They recall all their photographic experience just to set up one scene at a time, methodically and carefully. They then figure out the best way to applying all that photographic experience to the static scene in front of them. The camera is always mounted on a tripod to avoid motion blurring of any sort. Sadly, none of this was any part of an option for me on this day. Instead, I needed to figure out how to get the best shots from a moving car... between 35 and 50 mph... meandering through a long, bumpy road construction zone. This was not ideal for landscape photography!

I have to add that, for me, all this vibrant color looks very unnatural and unappealing to me. Autumn color is a very weird phenomenon. Whenever I see these colors, I feel like I am looking at a false color photo... sort of like a negative or infrared image... some sort of unnatural, scientific color enhancement like we see in weather radar imagery. For me, even though I grew up in the northeast and spent much of my free time in the Adirondack Mountains admiring rugged nature, autumn's vibrant color is a bit of a strange phenomenon. Whenever I see all these colors across a countryside, I feel as though I am wearing some sort of kaleidoscope goggles and it actually gives me a bit of a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach! To be honest, I prefer all different shades and tones of lush greens. Regardless, I still try my best to get out at least one day each autumn to capture this colorful, vibrant phenomenon which many areas of our world never get to see.

Even though it was through the open window of a moving car on a winding, bumpy road, avoiding shooting the utility poles that line the road and are flying by at dizzying speeds, avoiding trees on the side of the road, avoiding power lines while trying to find good colors, light and tonal qualities, I somehow managed to capture some beautiful light and color!