Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. ~Lao Tzu~
Sometimes just a section of an area is enough to give you the full feeling of what you’re after. This is a tiny slice of a small mountain filled with a melange of fall colors mixed in with evergreen trees.
After driving down a dirt road off of this mountain, I looked back and saw this lovely assortment of trees and colors of every kind. Of course I had to stop and get in a few shots!! 🙂
I’d guess you’d call this a salad of color!!
Enjoy
What says autumn other than fall color change on the trees? Well, of course, the vast array of autumnal beauty at your very feet. A gorgeous carpet of joy!
As I walked through the woods on a very rainy day, I got to enjoy the sheer loveliness of what was beneath my feet! This area was filled with many varieties of Maple trees which created a very colorful bit of eye candy as I walked along.
Since this is such a simple shot, I decided to put the focus on the orange leaf in the center, and on the area directly around it. I used a bit of blur in the rest of the image. Take in the image a bit more by reading the description below.
Imagine standing here. Close your eyes for a minute. Breath in the fresh rain filled air, notice the earthy scent of the wet soil and leaves. Feel the chilly breeze on your skin, and the drizzle of rain as it lays a mist on your hair. Now open your eyes and take in colors. Vibrant yellow, orange, gold and red. Muted browns that have fallen earlier. Enjoy the contrast of colors and the depths of the leaves. Inhale every bit of beauty into your soul and remember this well for beauty like this comes but once a year!
Thank you all for stopping by for a bit of autumn joy! I wish you all a wonderful fall this year and every year!!
“Center of Attention”
Here we are at a familiar place to some of you. The historic Point Iroquois Light Station, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I had just walked up to the lighthouse and started to get into a position that looked like a nice angle to me, when all of a sudden I heard the sound of a prop plane, and within an instant it was in my frame. I took a quick shot, the one you see here, then angled to get one of the place by itself. As the lens I was using wasn’t much of a telephoto, the plane didn’t come out as I would have liked it to.
Maybe some of you may know what aircraft it is by the shape. I was really more interested in this historic lighthouse though! The image here was taken in mid September. I went back again in early October and got a late autumn photo, which I will try to bring at a later date with all the fall foliage!!
The beauty of this lighthouse makes it one of my favorites along Lake Superior. The surrounding area with its beautiful lakes and forests are another plus!!
Enjoy! 🙂
Believe it or not. For some reason, until this year. I had never taken the time to visit Niagara Falls. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. For sure you can see that the Canadian side is much more built up, and has a myriad of opportunities for activity, nightlife, dining, hotels etc.
What surprised me though was the raw natural beauty and the hidden gem of what used to be, but has somehow become forgotten on the american side. Although I did see some renovations going on, and some areas that looked newly renovated!
There were people there from all over the country, and the world in general. There were also a lot of Canadians coming across to get a look at the U.S. side, and to see their side from our point of view.
The image here is of the Rainbow Bridge to Canada. It was viewed from a tall platform above the Niagara River. You can get a sense of the beauty of the river, the bridge, and the activities on the Canadian side.
What you don’t see here is the immense beauty of the actual falls, and the other nature surrounding them on the U.S. side.
I’ll be giving you a taste of that sometime in the future.
Have a wonderful weekend to all!! 🙂
“Bridge to Canada”
Hi everyone, it’s been a busy past few weeks for me, so now that I have a breather, I thought I’d sit down a write a post. Today I was processing some images. I decided just for fun, to take one unedited image and process it 3 different ways just to change it up a slight bit.
The first photo is the unedited version. This was a quick grab for me. I was trying to find a spot a along Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, that had a view to the west. When I finally found it, the sun was just about to set completely. I jumped out of the car and ran towards the water. I only got in a few shots before the sun was gone!
The colors did continue to become more and more beautiful though, as they went through their changes moving into the night!
That of course is not what this post is about. It’s about one image and a little bit of play.
You’ll notice the colors here are nice, but not very bright. The foreground is pretty dark, and there were some small rocks in the shallow parts of the water.
Unedited version of “Long Sunset”
In this next image I decided to go with a bit of a more purple cast. I used a combination of Lightroom , and Nik Color Efex Pro to make these changes in this and in the other two images. The changes were very simple, so I won’t go into detail. This post is more about the images themselves and not how they got that way.
Here, you’ll notice more of a warm cast, I’d call peach. I also removed the small rocks in the foreground.
Finally in this last image I went a bit wild, and brought out a lot of warmth and a bright yellow cast. I also removed some of the noise in this one, even though I had already taken some out by the original processing in Nik. In my opinion this one, instead of being a sunset, it seemed to take on the appearance of a sunrise by lightening up the foreground more, and the intense hues I gave it. See if it makes you feel that way too.
Obviously this isn’t a “How to”, but I thought it might be fun to just take a simple sunset, and see where you could go with it, without going totally out of the realm of reality.
Of course for the person that doesn’t believe in any processing at all, this is already way over the top! 😉
I hope you enjoyed this post, and enjoyed the slight difference in each image. Have a great weekend everyone!! 🙂
Hi everyone. I think I’ll call this talk-less Tuesday! A short post! 😉
This beautiful walkway, or boardwalk out to the shores along Lake Superior was a lovely surprise to me. Heading up all around Michigan’s Upper Peninsula I decided to take a more scenic and longer route from Sault Saint Marie to Munising. Part of that way included passing through Grand Marais MI.
I drove straight up through the tiny quaint and charming town to this spot. I took a few shots, and spent some time walking around the beach. The sun was warm, the breeze was cool, and the water crystal clear, and blue!!
All in all a lovely place and a beautiful scene!! 🙂
“Walking Grand Marais”
This image of a wonderful stone lighthouse is from a recent visit to Old Fort Niagara in Youngstown, New York at the place where The Niagara River meets Lake Ontario. Quite a lovely location!!
The lighthouse was originally built by the French and established in 1782. It sat atop a chateaux or “French Castle” as it was called, which is still located inside the actual fort. The lighthouse was later moved off of the chateaux in order to make more room for more officer’s quarters, and is now located just outside of the fort itself.
The chateaux is wonderful and I’ll be bringing you images of that in a later post. I spent a lot of time at the fort with my son who was mesmerized by the history, and gave me plenty of time to get as many images as possible! 🙂
The type of stone used here in the lighthouse is limestone, it also has a brick lining, which you can see when you go inside of the tower. The original lens was a fourth order Fresnel lens.
The lighthouse itself was deactivated in 1996 and was replaced by a light beacon which is located at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Niagara.
To me there is something really fascinating about lighthouses, the stories they could tell and the history they’ve witnessed.
As many of you know I have a great love of history and architecture in addition to my love of nature. I have many more images of lighthouses and historical places to come in later posts. I hope you’ll enjoy that.
For those of you who don’t live on or have never visited any of the Great Lakes in the U.S., you’ll find that the majority of, if not all the lighthouses were the type connected to a living quarters, more like a light station. Different from the style you’d find on the coasts near the ocean.
Each style has its own beauty. I especially love the strength and charm of the limestone one here at Old fort Niagara!!
On the day I visited the fort itself, it was pouring down rain the entire time. I had to wait another day for the weather to clear to get this and many other beautiful images of the lighthouse!!
Enjoy!!
The colors of fall fluttering in the wind. Such beauty that has only a short lifespan! Today I fly free with the leaves! My soul becomes one with the colors that I wait all year for! Grasp what you can and hold tight, for soon the cold winds will blow and the colors will cease!
