Archive for category Fall Color
July 29, 2010 – Mediocre Image Thursday
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 29, 2010
Fall color along Gold Camp Road
Thursday, July 29, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=681
Hey everyone! I’m going to start a new weekly feature here at Dave’s Picture of the Day. Every Thursday, I’m going to post a picture that’s totally, absolutely, horrendously mediocre. This is of course different from every other day because on Thursdays I’ll actually be calling them out as such. Exciting! I’ve got a ton of images that are mostly okay, as in they’re mostly in focus and such, but they just… don’t quite do it for me. They just aren’t quite interesting enough, or whatever.
So, today we’re going to kick it all off with this one! This was taken along Gold Camp Road, which is a dirt road that takes you from Colorado Springs out to Cripple Creek. Or, the other way around, if that’s your thing. There’s of course also a highway route that’s longer but much faster, but that one is not included in today’s picture. Only one route at a time, that’s what I always say. Why does it get the dubious honor of being the first image selected for mediocre-image-Thursday? Meh, I dunno. It’s got some nice elements, the nice bright yellow tree, all the detail in it. But the tree is sort of awkwardly placed. And the background isn’t really that interesting. It’s not a total train-wreck though, it definitely reminds me of when I was there, which can be a useful thing, if you’re trying to help yourself remember when you were somewhere. But it doesn’t really do a good job of reminding *you* when I was there, because you weren’t there.
Stay tuned, next week’s Thursday special will be even more not awesome!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 21mm.
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July 8, 2010 – Aspen Leaves
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 8, 2010
Aspen Leaves
Thursday, July 8, 2010
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Another late/short post today. Sorry about that! These are aspen leaves in the fall, in Colorado.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 183mm.
Popularity: 10%
June 30, 2010 – Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 30, 2010
Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1151
It’s the end of June, folks. That means fall is right around the corner. I’m saying that with a particularly cynical attitude, given that here in Seattle we’re still waiting for our summer weather to start. A common joke around here is that summer in Seattle starts on July 5th. And this year it’s holding particularly true. We’ve still only had I believe one day that hit 75 degrees in Seattle this year. One. Effing. Day. As I write this it’s hovering “comfortably” in the low 60s. But, sometime in the mid-morning on July 5, our summertime high pressure is supposed to finally arrive in earnest, and next week is supposed to be gorgeous. But until the 5th, we’ll be struggling to hit 65 degrees. Sigh.
Right, anyway. Here’s another picture taken in the fall along the Merritt Lake Trail. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might start to wonder if the Merritt Lake Trail is the ONLY trail I’ve ever hiked in the fall. But the reality is, if you just consider the last couple years, you’d be exactly right. (Amazing what having a kid will do to your best laid plans…) But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a FANTASTIC trail in the fall. Lots of crazy bold colors that don’t seem like they should naturally occur in nature, especially not in that quantity. (Maybe not QUITE as unnatural-looking at the explosion of fluffy pink cherry blossoms in the springtime, but bringing those up is playing dirty.)
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your June. If you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest with me, you’re probably outside having fun instead of hunkering down inside with a jacket on reading stupid blogs on the internet.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm
Popularity: 13%
June 8, 2010 – Ingalls Creek
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 8, 2010
Ingalls Creek in Autumn
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a fall colors pic (has it? I actually don’t know, I haven’t been paying attention), so I figure a random Tuesday in June is the perfect time for one. Besides, with the crappy spring we’ve had up here in Seattle, it feels like fall anyway. I mean, seriously, I’m sick of temps in the 50s, I’m ready for some effing sun. Goddamn.
You’re looking at Ingalls Creek, which is up Highway 97 in Washington State, a little ways north of Blewett Pass. (Basically, on the eastern slope of the central Cascades.) The road (Ingalls Creek Road, appropriately enough) is blocked right at the trailhead for the Ingalls Creek Trail, although there’s a bridge and the road keeps going on the other side. (Although if you follow it up the hill for a bit, you soon run into a landslide that blocked the roadway, that’s probably why it’s blocked. Not sure where the road ends up, but it’s sad that they decided to just go ahead and block it off rather than maintain it, in my opinion anyway.) Why am I telling you all of this? Because I’m trying to get across that this picture was taken on the other side of the bridge, just a couple minutes from the trailhead. That’s all.
Ingalls Creek seems to be a pretty decent trail for checking out fall colors. Most of the surrounding forest is evergreens, but right along the creek there’s a bunch of nice bright yellows. I’ve honestly never gone further than an hour or so up the trail (various reasons, whatever), but the part I’ve seen just nicely meanders along the water. No big views or anything, but some nice wildflowers and fall colors (not at the same time though.) So, go check it out. Or, alternatively, don’t.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Focal length: 27mm.
Popularity: 20%
May 13, 2010 – The Matterhorn
Posted by Dave in Europe, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on May 13, 2010
The Matterhorn, seen from Zermatt, Switzerland
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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Whoops, looks like I missed a day. Sorry about that. I would make up some excuse about how I was really busy, or I was really sick (both excuses I’ve used recently), or that something super important came up or happened that prevented me from posting a picture despite my best efforts to the contrary. But it’s not true. The truth is, I really like the picture I used on Tuesday, and I wanted to give it some more time to bake as the first picture you see when you hit my blog, before it got buried underneath some other mediocre picture that I would have posted yesterday. I figure the first picture that people see when they stumble on in through the door goes a long way toward determining whether or not they’ll decide it’s worth their time to stick around, so I figured I’d give that one an extra day, since it was posted sort of late in the afternoon. (That’s also why I tend to post somewhat better pictures on Friday – since I figure people will be looking at it all weekend. Nevermind the fact that almost nobody comes to my blog on weekends, let’s just go ahead and pretend that’s not true.)
So, now that I’ve given away all my dark and dirty secrets… Here’s a picture of the Matterhorn! As you can tell by the little bit of orange grassy stuff in the lower left corner, we were there in the fall, mid September to be more precise. It was a fantastic time to be in the Alps (although to be fair we got EXTREMELY lucky with the weather on our whole trip), as there were a lot of gorgeous yellows and oranges everywhere that would normally just be ordinary greens. Since I’m a sucker for fall colors, I was loving it.
This picture was taken near one of the stops of the Gornergrat Bahn, which is the train that takes you from the village at Zermatt (ski resort in Switzerland) way up into the mountains. It drops you off way above tree-line (above grass-line too, as it turns out), at a really cool viewpoint where you’re overlooking both the Matterhorn as well as a bunch of huge glaciers that drape the upper reaches of Monte Rosa. (Although it’s worth pointing out that, while Monte Rosa is awesome to look at, from that close it really wasn’t very photogenic, there’s just too much going on, and not enough of a focal point to really draw in your eye. It’s just a jumbled mass of mountain-stuff. Impressive, yes. But I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in the camera lens.) This wasn’t actually taken from the end of the line, rather it was taken I think two stops down the hill. We were still above tree-line there, but there was at least a lot of grass around, which had a really nice warm glow in the autumn sunshine. Lovely day, lovely day.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/200s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 71mm.
Popularity: 28%
May 10, 2010 – Mt. Shuksan from Yellow Aster Butte
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on May 10, 2010
Mt. Shuksan from Yellow Aster Butte
Monday, May 10, 2010
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Mt. Shuksan, seen from Yellow Aster Butte. It’s worth noting that Yellow Aster Butte is not actually yellow. “But,” you might say, “the name doesn’t reference the Aster Butte that is Yellow, it is instead the Butte of Yellow Aster!”. And it’s true, there is some yellow stuff out there. But is that aster? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/60s, f/9.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 55mm.
Popularity: 29%
April 30, 2010 – Larches at Ingalls Pass
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on April 30, 2010
Larches at Ingalls Pass
Friday, April 30, 2010
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According to the old saying, it should be raining today. And tomorrow? Flowers. Sweet, looking forward to that, for sure. Although glancing at the forecast leads to the question of what exactly the May showers bring. And I’ll tell you: the one year anniversary of me starting this blog, that’s what. Whooooo yeah.
Today’s picture was taken on the Ingalls Pass trail, which is accessible via a 20 or 30 mile long dead-end road outside of Cle Elum, Washington. Those trees are larches. They’re actually coniferous (pine) trees, but they’re fairly unique in that they actually change colors and drop their needles in the fall. They’re really pretty, but (at least in western Washington) pretty hard to get to. I guess there are fairly large swaths of them in some of the eastern Washington forests, and western Montana, and the Idaho panhandle, although my understanding is that those are a somewhat different species than these here that you’re looking at. (But that doesn’t change the fact that they, also, change colors and drop their needles.) Out here, they are only found at higher elevations at particular locations, which means you’ve gotta hike to find them. We got pretty lucky the year I took this: we had gotten a little bit of snow a couple days before, then a beautiful sunny day that fell right on a weekend right when the larches were peaking. Perfect timing really. I told Julie at the time that we needed to make a larch hike an annual tradition, but that didn’t end up happening yet. (Well, to be fair, the next year she was on the verge of giving birth to our kid, and the year after that we … didn’t really have a good excuse.) Maybe this year, check back in the fall, I’ll let you know.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/200s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 39mm.
Popularity: 24%
April 29, 2010 – Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso
Posted by Dave in Europe, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on April 29, 2010
Alpe Money Trail, Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso
Thursday, April 29, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=813
Hi! It’s me! I just realized earlier today that my RSS feed has been sitting there broken for a couple months now. That means the HORDES of subscribers that eagerly anticipate seeing my content via Google FeedReader each day have been under the impression that either I’m super lazy or that the Picture of the Day was totally abandoned. At least one of those is not actually true!! So, to all of my RSS subscribers, welcome back!!
Also among the things I realized earlier today is this: I haven’t posted a picture from Europe in quite awhile. (Months, really..) So, I quickly woke up, found one, and Wham!, here we go-go. (Too much of a stretch there?) This goes back to Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso (Gran Paradiso National Park), in the northwest corner of Italy. We fortunately had the time available to spend a whole day hiking there, and it was totally amazing in every way. Loved it, I need to go back.
I’ll stop here, since all of you RSS readers have a lot of content to catch up on today. Man, I bet you’re excited, huh?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/160s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 27%
April 14, 2010 – Wenatchee National Forest
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on April 14, 2010
Autumn in Wenatchee National Forest
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
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Hey everyone! It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to post another picture. I had a tough time picking one today, I’m not sure why. Some days, it’s easy. Like, the day after getting home from Jamaica. I figured I should post something from Jamaica. (Well, then I had to pick WHICH picture from Jamaica to use, but that just came down to the first one I saw that was good enough.) Some days, it’s harder than that, but still not too hard. Like if it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a picture of a flower, I figure I should post a picture of a flower. Today though, I had no clue what I wanted to toss up here. I literally decided on 25 different pictures but then changed my mind before it made it up on the page.
In the end, I decided to go with this one. It’s a pretty old one, from before the time that I had my first digital SLR. (I had a 35mm SLR way back in the day, but I never really liked using it – the advantages of digital were SO blatant in my mind that the 35mm started collecting dust almost immediately after I got my little pocket digital, which was just a little 2mp POS. I’ve never looked back since, even though that meant spending a few years SLR-less.) But, I like the colors. Fall color shots always put me in a good mood, even in the spring when I should be getting excited about the nice weather that I keep hearing rumors is on its way. (But let’s be honest, I’m in Seattle, it won’t be summer here until July 5th.)
This was taken in Wenatchee National Forest, sort of between Blewett Pass and Leavenworth. For those outside of Washington state, that’s like me saying it was taken somewhere between NYC and Boston. In other words, I’m being kind of vague. But that’s fine for today. Most of the forest is evergreen, but there are definitely pockets of deciduous trees and bushes, particularly along the rivers. So you get some nice color if you know where to look. I don’t know the right way to wrap up today’s post.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S500 (Point and Shoot). 1/200s, f/3.2.
Popularity: 16%
March 23, 2010 – Kubota Japanese Garden
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 23, 2010
Kubota Japanese Garden, Seattle, Washington
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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Uh oh, only one more post until the two week drought! How are we all going to make it through?? Well, dumb question, I know exactly how I’ll make it through. With lots of cocktails. On the beach. Oh, it’ll be rough, for sure. It’s you all that I’m worried about. How will you survive without your daily dose of wit and pixels? You probably won’t, I’ll probably just no longer have an audience when I get home. Sigh.
Today’s picture takes us back to the Kubota Garden on the south side of Seattle. It’s one of two (that I know about) Japanese gardens in town, the other being in the arboretum just south of the university. They’re both really nice, but the Kubota Garden is bigger and has more little nooks. (Although it’s worth noting that they have about the same number of crannies.) This picture was at the very limit of what the equipment I had could handle. In fact, the image quality isn’t *quite* what I’d be happy with, although it’s what I got, so I guess I’ll just have to be happy with it. It was really dark in there, which meant using a long shutter speed and a wide-open aperture. So my depth of field wasn’t what I would have wanted, and the shutter speed I was using (1/40th of a second!) allowed for a little bit of both camera shake and motion blur. Either one of those can trash an otherwise nice picture, but I think this one made it through just barely. I suppose I could have jacked up the ISO to compensate, but this was with my older camera (the Rebel XT) which didn’t handle high-ISOs very well, nowhere near as well as the T1i anyway.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting a picture that I’ve threatened to post a few times, starting back in Canada week. I’m finally going to do it tomorrow, and then you’ll have to look at it for 2 weeks. That’s okay though, it’s a nice one. See you then!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/3.5, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 33%
March 5, 2010 – Fallen Leaf
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on March 5, 2010
Fallen leaf
Friday, March 5, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1296
And just like that, another week comes to a close. It’s funny, until my Olympic special last week, I hadn’t felt any particular urge to use any Vancouver/Whistler shots for awhile. But now that I promised not to use ANY Vancouver/Whistler shots this week, those are suddenly the only ones I can think of. Seriously, the first three pictures I wanted to use for today were all ineligible. Sigh.
Fortunately, I was able to find something to work with today. I stumbled on this leaf about a month ago. I was fairly surprised actually, for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s a really pretty leaf. It was an odd color, that kid of sandy brown, and it was kind of translucent. There were several of them lying around, and they all looked super fragile, like tissue paper, but they were surprisingly resilient. Next, it was.. umm.. February. Clearly the leaf had just recently fallen, it was quite fresh. It didn’t fall, get buried with snow, and then become exposed as the snow melted. (As you can tell, it was pretty warm – the snow was definitely more slushy than powdery – this was at a pretty low elevation on the eastern side of the Cascades, on a pretty warm sunny day, which was itself part of a fairly long streak of warm sunny days.) But, why would the leaf hold on all through the winter, just to ingloriously drop on a random sunny February day? Don’t know. But I’ll happily take a picture of it.
Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 50mm.
Popularity: 33%
February 24, 2010 – Changing Leaves
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day on February 24, 2010
Changing leaves
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1088
Rather than suffocate all of you with a neverending set of mountain vistas from the twin peaks of Whistler and Blackcomb, I figured I should mix in some other stuff too. Like this one. This could have been taken anywhere, really. But it wasn’t, it was taken a little ways up the Singing Pass trail, which starts up the hill from right near the Whistler gondola. I really really wish I had gotten the bottom of the leaf in focus too, but I didn’t. It’s a textbook example of one of the really annoying things that can happen with digital. The shot looked great on the camera’s little screen, so I moved on, confident that I got the image I wanted. It wasn’t until much later (when I got home) that I realized my mistake. I was working with a pretty small depth of field as you can see, so what I *should* have done was gotten more square on that leaf in front, such that the whole surface would have been within range. Instead, I came in from a little bit above, so the bottom was just out of reach. (That, and the leaf was a bit curled in on itself.) Careless, careless, careless. Sigh.
Still a beautiful couple of leaves though, so it’s not a complete waste of time. Check back tomorrow, that’s going to be the day that I’m going to get the picture of Shannon Creek out of the way. (You didn’t think I’d go a whole week of PICTURES OF CANADA without tossing one of those in there, did you??)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm lens. 1/125s, f/3.5, ISO 400. Focal length: 59mm.
Popularity: 43%