Aspen Trees Crested Butte, Colorado My coworker Ana and I spent about a week photographing the fall colors in Colorado. After photographing sunrise in Breckenridge we set off for Crusted Butte, by way of a small city called Gunnison. Although we had seen some fall colors near Breckenridge it wasn't until this drive that the colors started to go crazy. After a grocery stop in Gunnison we took off up Ohio Creek pass. The views of the trees, river basin and trees was breathtaking. We stopped so often that the hour long drive started turning into a multi-hour trip. Most of the drive was fairly open, with views of the entire valley basin but eventually we came upon a beautiful grove of Aspen trees that walled us into a little forest. Clouds had come out, bathing the trees with beautiful soft light. When I saw the light hitting the sides of these Aspens, with the orange and yellow ferns below I pulled over and snapped a bunch of photos. D850 w/Nikkor 80-200mm: 185mm, f/9, 1/80 sec, ISO 500
Snowy Trees Banff National Park, Canada Weather conditions in the mountains are hard to predict and as a photographer you have to learn to be flexible and adaptable if you want to come home with as many beautiful photos as possible. For our trip, we knew we wanted to visit the grand vistas that the Canadian Rockies is known for, but we also knew that predicted snowstorms would mean those views would be completely clouded in. We planned on photographing more intimate or abstract photos during those times. A foot or two of snow fell in Banff while we were there. During this snowstorm Willie and I ventured out to photograph some of the trees while they were still snow covered. We made our way towards Lake Minnewanka, only to find the road was closed. That was OK because we parked at the road closure, threw on and hiked to a little patch of Birch trees. I used a relatively high shutter speed to capture the falling snow and loved how the trees cascade towards the background. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8: 145mm, f/16, 1/60 sec, ISO 400
Soft Light and fall colors in the Sequoia Redwood forest Sequoia National Park, California Despite living in Northern California for over 12 years now, I had never taken the 4 hour drive over to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. When Willie proposed hopping over there to see if we could capture some fall colors, I immediately said "YES!" Our plans changed multiple times as we watched the weather and waited for the trees to turn color. We were a month too early, so we delayed. We were a week too early, so we went to Lassen National Park instead. And then finally it looked like the colors were changing and we skipped work, booked a hotel and drove down on a Thursday. We knew a few particular areas of the park were prone to having fall colors. Particularly the dogwood trees and we drove straight to them. The fall colors were not to be found! We spent the day hunting for signs of color. Just before the evening "golden hour" we pulled over at a pull-out and noticed this area ... to our amusement it was the exact area we had first scouted but the harsh light had now faded and we were coming in from a different angle. We grabbed our cameras and snapped away, before running off to see if we could find more colors elsewhere. I loved the way that a few tones of colors nestled up right against the giant Sequoia trees, and then on the other side the green pine trees framed the scene. Nikon D850 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8: 125mm, f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 64
