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Posts Tagged ‘autumn foliage’

Autumn color

Posted in Art, Autumn, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on October 30, 2023| 7 Comments »

How do you capture the beauty of the fall foliage? I like to try a variety different approaches with my camera.  These three images of the water retention pond in Kingstowne, only a mile or so from my townhouse, convey some of my impressions of this colorful season.

The first image is perhaps my favorite of the three. By photography the reflections in the water I was able to remove the details of the foliage and focus on the colors and the light. It reminds me a little of some impressionist paintings by Monet and others.

For the second photo, I pointed my camera at a particularly colorful patch of leaves that were being backlit and zoomed in quite a bit. In addition to the brilliant colors, I really like the interplay of the light and the shadows.

The third image is the most “traditional” in its approach to the foliage—it is the kind of photo that you might see on a calendar. It provides the “big picture” that I sometimes forget to include in my normal photography, when I tend to concentrate on capturing the details of a subject with a macro or telephoto lens.

This season of autumn color will soon be coming to an end. When I left my house yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but notice that all of the streets and yards in my neighborhood were covered with fallen leaves. Life, it seems, is all about changes and celebrating each new moment.

autumn colors

autumn colors

autumn colors

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Kingfisher in autumn

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2023| 6 Comments »

I will often strive to photograph my wildlife subjects from as many different angles as I can in order to take advantage of the lighting or to highlight the details of their bodies. When I spot a subject, though, I initially try to capture whatever shot I can before I work to get a better shot—any of my subjects are skittish and there is always the chance that my initial shot will be my only one.

I spotted this perched male Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) last Thursday at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia and one of my initial shots was the third one below. The perch was sticking out of a pond that was surrounded by a marshy wetland, so there was really no chance for me to get closer to the kingfisher—there was no way to work the angles in my usual way.

So what did I do? In the background I noticed there were some patches of colorful fall foliage, so I decided to see if I could include some of those colors in my images to give them an autumn vibe. By bending, twisting, crouching, and kneeling I was able to vary my shooting angle, while remaining more or less in the same spot, and eventually managed to get some photos that included portions of that autumn foliage. The kingfisher remained in place, but cooperated by changing his head position from time to time.

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Traces of autumn color

Posted in Autumn, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on October 8, 2022| 9 Comments »

The colors of the fall foliage in my area of Northern Virginia are not very impressive. Generally we fade gradually from green to brown and then the leaves fall off of the trees. Fortunately, though, pops of bright color periodically remind me of the colors that I would see when I was growing up in New England.

It is still a bit early for those colors to appear, but I did notice a few traces of autumn color when I was out with my camera this week. Mostly it was individual colorful leaves, but I did notice a few trees as I gazed across the pond at Huntley Meadows Park that had jumped ahead of their compatriots and were already showing their blazing red autumn color.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year, especially the early days of autumn.

autumn color

autumn color

autumn color

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Shenandoah National Park

Posted in Autumn, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on October 17, 2021| 26 Comments »

It is still a little early for full fall foliage at Shenandoah National Park here in Virginia, but there were plenty of hints of color on Friday as I drove along parts of Skyline Drive. There were periodic moments of sunshine, but most of the time the distant mountains were shrouded in mist that caused them to gradually disappear into hazy layers of gray and blue.

Shenandoah National Park is about 75 miles (120 km) from Washington D.C. and extends along the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Skyline Drive, a relatively narrow, winding road, runs the length of the park—approximately 105 miles (170 km)—and generally follows the ridge line of the mountains. There are quite a few pull-offs that provide some amazing views.

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Beauty revealed

Posted in Autumn, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on October 6, 2018| 12 Comments »

Shining brightly from behind the leaves, the sun revealed their autumnal beauty.

This is completely different from my “normal” photography, but when I stumbled upon this blaze of color while exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, I couldn’t help but try to capture a sense of the moment.

autumn leaves

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Autumn Meadowhawk in late October

Posted in Autumn, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2014| 12 Comments »

Many of the other dragonflies are gone for the season, but the Autumn Meadowhawks (Sympetrum vicinum) will be around for quite some time, possibly even into December. Autumn Meadowhawks like to perch on the ground much of the time, but yesterday I was happy to capture one in what I consider to be its natural environment, perched among the colorful leaves of the autumn foliage.

Autumn Meadowhawk

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Autumn geese landing

Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2013| 11 Comments »

Standing at the end of a small pond, I heard the sounds of an approaching flock of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis). I looked all around as I prepared to track them and couldn’t help noticing areas of beautiful autumn foliage.

Wouldn’t it be cool  if I could capture the geese landing with the colorful leaves as a background? I put that idea in the back of my mind, remembering that it was going to be tough enough to capture decent shots of the geese without worrying about the background.

It’s a noisy crazy couple of moments when the geese come in for a landing—they come in waves and there is so much activity that it’s hard to figure out what to focus on. Usually, as I did here, I will try to concentrate on a single bird as it approaches and to keep it in focus.

I captured this image at the moment when the geese were slowing down just prior to entry into the water. My main subject is in a pretty good focus and the other geese are in interesting positions. I was surprised that I was able to get the orange background—it had been a hope, but certainly not an expectation. The result is an image that I really like, an image that combines two of the iconic elements of the autumn.

geese_landing_fall_blog

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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