After one of the wettest summers I can remember and a 7 inch rainfall over less than two days, we’ve been given a beautiful start to autumn. Last week was amazing, and the weekend was actually hot. I headed out to Whitewater State Park yesterday late afternoon to see what I could find for autumn colors in the fading light.
Many of the leaves were already gone. Some wildflowers are still hanging on.
I’m always amazed by the flowers that show up this late in the season. Bumble bees were out and about apparently also enjoying the flowers.
But there were still some nice leaf colors to enjoy, like those in the first photo above. Sometimes, there are just a few glowing in the fading sunshine.
Some are rich with color.
As I filled the frame with these oak leaves, I was struck by all the red. So much red, the leaves almost disappear into one another.
I found these leaves hanging out over the river which provided a wonderful dark background to help them pop.
It was a nice evening, and I worked up quite a sweat even with the temperature falling with the sun. I was hoping for more leaves, but I had already decided to mainly focus in tight. I find I really like these leaves-up-close shots. They tend to be less common than the grand colorful hillside photos, and they give you a sense of connection to the individual trees producing all that color. I like to fill the frame with a color.
I like to contrast that color with the darkness of the trunk and the branches. That’s why my favorite of these shots is the first one I showed above. It feels a bit like a painting to me. A variety of muted colors and the golden leaves against the blacks of the bark. A successful hike.
