This fall has been a bit unusual in many ways in SE. Michigan. I know that the summer drought contributed to a very early shedding of leaves before their time, which lead to a disappointing start.
But after the initial non starter of color, we finally received quite a bit of rain and some colder nights! This brought out some really vibrant autumn color on many of the maples and also the ginkgo trees, which I always look forward to every year!
The morning I photographed these ginkgo leaves it was rainy, misty, and really foggy. I think it shows off the color and lusciousness of the rain on the leaves. I love the vibrant golden hue of the ginkgo leaves!
“Luscious Ginkgo Gold” Beautiful golden Ginkgo leaves on a misty fall morning after a rain.
“Rainy Day Ginkgo” More rainy day ginkgo beauty!
I hope you enjoyed these fall images. I’ll be sharing a few more images from the season in the next couple of posts. All of our autumn color is gone now so I guess it’s time to get into all my photographs and see what I actually have.
Earlier this past fall, I made a week long trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I knew that fall color was a little later this year than last so I felt really good about my timing. What I couldn’t predict, and really, who can, was the weather! During the seven days there I had only one day of sunshine, but without a cloud in the sky. The rest of the days were either rainy or at least drizzling and or foggy. I had so hoped to see Lake of the Clouds in good weather. Oh well, it certainly was “In the Clouds” is all I can say! Both fog and mist!
It rained the entire time I was there, and of course I had forgotten to bring an umbrella, so I used shower caps, and other plastic bags to cover my camera and lenses. Anyway, I was thrilled to see this beautiful place no matter what the weather was, but I had hoped to come back with images of gorgeous fall color and amazing clouds! Oh well, at least I did get some amazing fog and mist, and I could see there was wonderful fall color underneath all that fog! 😉
“Lake of the Clouds in Mist” A foggy, misty, and rainy day at Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains of MI.
After leaving Lake of the Clouds and the Porcupine Mountains, the weather only got worse. I headed east towards Marquette, having rain coming down in buckets at times, and at other times a drizzle or mist. About halfway between where I was, and where I was going, I passed by Lake Plumbago. My eyes nearly popped out of my head! Wow amazing reflections! I made a U-Turn in the middle of the road and went back to a lovely roadside park next to the lake. It was mildly drizzling at the time so I got out my tripod and camera and spent the next 15 minutes or so there just making photographs of the fall color and reflections and really just enjoying the eye candy!
“Lake Plumbago Dream” Beautiful Lake Plumbago on a misty and foggy day. The reflections were amazing though!
We’ve had a pretty dreary winter this year, not as much snow, but plenty of clouds. I’m really ready to see some amazing color! I will have to wait half a year or so to see this kind of color again, but in the meantime I’m getting ready for the arrival of spring flowers! I hope your area has started to see some signs of spring, or if you live down under, I hope you are beginning to see some brilliant fall foliage!
Earlier this fall I made more than one trip up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I was trying to capture the fall color at the right times in several different locations. Well that didn’t exactly go as planned. Probably Murphy’s Law! 😉
I did manage to get to some locations though at the best time for color! 🙂
During my trips I did have quite a few “bad weather days”. Some are the kind you feel you just have to go out in to experience the raw power of nature. Other times it seemed a good time to kick back and relax, to just wait for things to clear.
One of my favorite subjects to photograph on those cloudy dreary days, which I encountered quite a bit, are waterfalls. I made it to several falls this time in the Munising area near Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore.
Munising Falls is one of them. It was rainy, getting close to sunset, and quite breezy, but oh so beautiful! This is one of many images I made at the falls. I love to watch the flowing water!
“Munising Falls in the beginning of autumn.
The area if your not familiar with it, is an easy trail from the car to the falls. A Ranger station is located on the site. There are three platformed viewing areas but the main location which is the first one you’ll see is by far the best one for good access to the view. I enjoyed talking with the rangers that are on staff there, they are quite friendly and knowledgeable, and very happy to answer any questions you may have.
I made many photographs of the falls and surrounding rock formations, many I have up on my site already. This image instead of giving you a full view of Munising Falls, as I have in other photos, is a tighter crop that shows off the flow of water and rock behind it.
I can imagine many other places where I’d like to stand in order to get closer or to get more interesting compositions, but there are pretty strict park rules about where you can and cannot go. These rules to some might seem restrictive, but in order to preserve the rock formations, plants and other forms of nature in the area they must be followed.
Often times when in locations such as these you’ll find people going over or under fences, heading off of the specified trails and disobeying park rules. What we all need to understand is that the rules are there to protect the beauty we are seeing. To protect the fragile plants, the amazing rock formations, and the habitat for so many forms of wildlife.
If everyone were to ignore the rules and guidelines, then what we see today would not be there in the same form for very long. That would be a sad situation indeed.
I encourage all of you to visit our natural areas, the parks, wilderness, preserves, and shores, local, state, and national. While your there enjoy all of the beauty the place has to offer, while still obeying the rules!
As you can see, I’m still trying to get in some more spring images before fall arrives, and being that it is now September 1st, well it’s certainly on our doorstep!!
In May, I found large areas of beautiful bright pink Azaleas in Virginia. This day happened to be a rainy one, which played really nicely with the flowers.
For the most part I’ve been processing them in color, but I decided to do one in monochrome. This one was processed first in Lightroom, then in Nik Silver Efex Pro.
There isn’t a lot of contrast here, but I like the tone on tone look to it. When adding more contrast, it seemed to detract somehow from the flowers themselves.
