Fall’s Parting Glances

— “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” Those are words by Chinese author Lin Yutang. Along those lines, there is also something very comfortable about familiar grounds and surroundings. When it comes to photography, that familiarity gives one’s imagination and creativity ample room to explore a scene.

The photo I introduced this post with is here in Austin, Texas. It is barely over a mile (one and a half kilometers) from our house. The Copperfield Nature Trail has been featured on my site many times. It is a place I like to go for a peaceful walk and sometimes an invigorating bike ride. I can do macro photography just as well as small landscape scenes, such as the ones above and below.

These two fall foliage images are very similar. I made them on a late afternoon in the final days of November this year. The main difference between the two photos is the location I used. In the first photo, I was at a point higher and past the fallen tree you see in the pond in the second shot. Both photos were merged from a series of five images each. I do that from time to time when there is a lot of high-dynamic light present in the scene. In these particular photos, the low-setting sun was casting shadows on the trees on the other side of the pond. I wanted to make sure I would capture those beautiful highlights on the left side of the images without losing the darker tones on the right side.

We were blessed with a spectacular fall foliage display in Austin this year. Previously, I shared other photos I obtained at Red Bud Isle in mid-November. The hard part about getting fall foliage photos for me this year was that we also had a lot of rainy days. You can even notice how damp that tree trunk in the second photo was.

Another location I always marvel at during the fall season is right here at home. There are a couple of large oak trees on the dividing line between our house and our neighbor’s. These oak trees create an impressive color display that illuminates our guest bedroom with dark red and orange hues. It is as if we have changed the wall color in that bedroom. This year, I went outside and took a couple of single shots from around and under those trees. They are featured below. You might want to click on each image to see it in full size. These colors are not changed. They are really that intense.