Fall Color Continues!

I know, I know, how much more fall color can we stand? Well, the season may be short, and most areas are well past peak by now, but I can never get enough of fall color landscapes. So without apology, here are more fall color images from my recent trip to New England!

This first image below was taken on a small country road called Northside Road, presumably because it roughly follows the north shore of the Upper Ammonoosuc River. It occurs to me that you might want to be careful when mentioning the name of that river around someone who’s not familiar with it, especially if that person is big and mean. Say it to yourself quickly with a little Jamaican accent and you’ll see what I mean. Makes you wonder how it got its name, doesn’t it? OK, pronounced correctly it’s probably safe, but what are the chances of that happening?

Anyway, this shed caught my eye because of the unusual paint job on the roof. It reminded me of an airplane wing, because airplanes have navigation lights on their wingtips, always green on the right and red on the left. This is so other aircraft can determine whether the “traffic” is flying toward them or away from them just by noting the colors of the lights on the wings. If you see green on your left and red on your right as in this photograph and the plane is getting larger quickly, you may have a problem. (Yes, in fact I am a licensed pilot, though I don’t fly anymore.)

A shed sports colorful patches on its roof, near Stark, New Hampshire.

The rest of the images are taken along the popular Kancamagus Highway, a 35 mile scenic stretch along New Hampshire Route 112 also known as “The Kanc”. Have you noticed that some of the names in New England are a bit challenging? Let’s work on this one together: say “Kank-ah-mah-gus”. Very good!

So the Kancamagus Scenic Byway cuts through the White Mountain National Forest and provides gorgeous views of, no surprise, the White Mountains, but also the Swift River, Lower Falls, Rocky Gorge, and numerous other breathtaking sights. It also provides views of lots and lots of tourists. During the fall, or “leaf peeping” season as it is called, the Kanc becomes crowded with hoards of tourists from all over the world. Getting images without tourists in them taking selfies is a real challenge, and driving can be interesting as well, as it’s not unusual to get stuck in a traffic jam in this area.

This first image is of a suspension footbridge that is usually infested, er, I mean, very popular with the tour bus crowd. Surprisingly, I did not have to “Photoshop” any people out of the image. I did, however, have to stand in this spot for a few days before the bridge was clear. OK, it was probably more like twenty minutes, but it seemed much longer.

And check out the name of that river: Pemigewasset! You’ll be forgiven if you just do like the locals and call it “The Pemi”.

Fall color begins to show on the Pemigewasset River just off the Kancamagus Scenic Byway, near Lincoln, New Hampshire.

This next image was easier, as I was able to simply shake the tourists out of the tree before taking the shot. But seriously, this zoom technique is one of my favorites to use when there are either bright lights or bright colors involved. As usual the camera is on a tripod, but for this effect I set it for an exposure of about one second so I would have time to twist the zoom ring on the lens. I frame the image so it looks good zoomed all the way in as well as all the way out, then leave the zoom ring at one extreme or the other. Once the exposure starts, I twist the ring so that it reaches the other end of the zoom range about the time the shutter closes a second later. Evaluate result, adjust as needed, repeat. Or sometimes just walk away. With this kind of shot, you never know what you’re going to get, so it’s always an experiment.

Fall color appears to explode, near the Rocky Gorge Scenic Area, New Hampshire.

And finally, this image was taken at the extremely popular Lower Falls turnout along the Swift River. Cars, buses, and RVs jam the parking lot, and then hoards of tourists head out into the river and onto the rocks. I really thought I was going to have to come back at dusk and shoot a long exposure after all the tourists had headed back to the comfort of their B&Bs, and while that would not have been a bad plan, I had other areas I wanted to visit that would make returning here at dusk difficult. So, by venturing out into the river myself and doing some creative composing, I managed to keep the herd out of my image.

Fall color begins to show along the banks of the Swift River, in the White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire.

So there you have it. I’m running out of fall color images I like, mostly because the color hadn’t really developed much before I had to move on, so you’re probably safe for the remainder of this year. But rest assured that next year I’ll be back out there, somewhere, looking for more color. So stay tuned!