Autumn is my favorite season but the leaves are not guaranteed. When there is ample rain the leaves change slowly through vibrant green, yellow, and red hues, creating a satisfying, long, and beautiful season. When there is less rain, the leaves quickly turn brown and fall off, leaving entire trees barren and making the season feel short and dull.
This season was a dry one and I didn’t have high hopes. As expected, the leaves died and fell quickly but I was surprised at what was left. There’d be a tree, completely barren, in front of another of semi-vibrant yellow. Those trees might be in front of some deep green pines, creating a contrast. I didn’t expect much out of this season, and while I didn’t take many photos, I was pleasantly surprised by what I got. I’ve also included some photos from the spooky season.
Autumn in the Forest
Adam practices Aikido in Portsmouth twice a week and I walk our dog at the nearby Urban Forestry Center. The Forestry Center is a large park with open grass, trails, and many of beautiful trees. I always take a couple trips there in autumn to catch the changing leaves. I visited twice this year – once toward the evening and once during the afternoon. The sky was overcast both times.
I was pleasantly surprised by the images. The colors weren’t as vibrant as in some years, but the juxtaposition of bare trees with colored ones, the diagonal lines they made, and the dramatic overcast sky made up for it. I enjoy the Forestry Center not only for its trees, but also because it has a few structures that add visual interest. There is a shed that can look lonely in the grassy expanse and a storage building that looks like quintessential New England peeking out from behind a maple tree. I even captured an image with a woman and her dog enjoying the grounds. These were all taken with my razor sharp 24-120mm Nikon Z.
Spooks
Sally decorates the front yard every year and one of the recurring features is a graveyard. I arrived home from my Urban Forestry Center shoot just as the sun was starting to set behind the semi-barren forest in our side yard. My 50mm f/1.4 Sigma Art made quick work of keeping my subjects sharp and my backgrounds smooth. The mix of colors from the leaves and darkness from the branches lent itself to the subject matter. Some creative processing, vignettes, and curves complete the effect.
Abandoned Places
Bed Bath & Beyond went bankrupt in 2023, followed quickly by Christmas Tree Shops a couple weeks later. The two stores share a structure and parking lot at our Portsmouth location, tucked in isolation between an active plaza and a hotel on the side of Route 16. As the grass grew up in the parking lot they started looking like the classical abandoned scenes I like to photograph. Over the summer I’d been thinking that I should stop by with my camera and capture some images before they were torn down.
I made it this fall, and just in the nick of time – the Bed Bath & Beyond building was already being demolished; I don’t expect Christmas Tree Shops to last much longer. I brought my 16mm Viltrox prime to get wide angles and distorted perspectives. I processed with a mixture of black and white, high contrast, and matte curves to amp up the sense of abandonment.
Yard Critters
In 2018 New Hampshire experienced the Squirrelpocalypse, where an abundance of food in the prior season created an abundance of squirrels the next season when food was not as abundant. This resulted in squirrels looking for food everywhere, often getting splattered all over our highways in the process. You could easily count over 100 dead squirrels on a 20 minute trip. This year is turning out to be a repeat and there are a lot of squirrels around foraging for food.
The squirrels around our house are pretty skittish, but less so when there are so many looking for food. I had the opportunity to capture a couple in our front yard with my Nikon 180-600mm lens while the leaves were still around. I still had to be quiet but they stuck around much longer than normal. If I startled them, they would skitter up a tree, but come back quickly instead of leaving entirely. This back-and-forth allowed me to spend about a half an hour with them, capturing far more images than I normally would. I enjoyed this time and hope those squirrels don’t end up on the side of the road.
Band
I spent a lot of my photo time this season shooting the boys’ marching band performances, which occurred once or twice each weekend. Most were in the evening, which isn’t great for foliage capture, but I was fortunate to shoot a few during the daylight hours preparing for our local band show. Bands were coming in as the golden hour was beginning, highlighting the yellow busses, red uniforms, and colored leaves. Clouds in the sky, added some interest.
Relatively Ambitious 