Autumn Light and Matter

I've made it back to Colorado for about 10 days between trips, and just in time to catch the peak of autumn colors. I love this time of year, but it also makes me sad because it is SO ephemeral. Colors come and go within a matter of days, and if you don't make it out... it's gone.

That's lesson number one - don't put things off, it may not be there tomorrow.

I've been out shooting a few times in the aspens so far this season, but each of my excursions has happened during the bright mid-morning hours. The light is directional, but it's high in the sky and, well, bright. It's not great for the big landscapes, but can work effectively within the confines of dense stand of aspens.

But which direction you look and photograph REALLY matters, and will have a huge impact on your images.

Over the shoulder light or front light, I find really tough to work with. Dappled light on the aspens means dark shadows and bright highlights. The golden colors appear muted. Like this:

It's contrasty, and confused. I have other versions of this photo with deeper depths of field, but those are even more strange looking as the background trees are drawn more into focus. Yeah, tricky light that, for me at least, doesn't capture the overwhelming gold that aspen forests are famous for.

Here is another photo from almost exactly the same location, but looking INTO the sun. Backlight makes the colors glow. Highlights are eliminated from the aspens, and we are left with a sense of autumn that the front light shot lacks.

And because of the low contrast, I could use a smaller aperture and deeper depth of field, showing more of the trees without making the image confusing to the viewer. This, is a much more effective image. The top photo in this post includes the sun, but as you can see, the light filtering through the leaves retains the same richness of color.

When I was creating these photos, I also shot this short video clip in which I panned between the frontlit and backlit aspens. Check out the difference:

Cross light falls somewhere in between, and can still work well. You get a bit of the highlights (sunlight hitting bark, or reflecting off leaves), but a polarizer can help (I used a polarizer in this shot, just for that reason).

And then there is cloudy light which makes a huge impact on a photo. First, directionality stops mattering, wherever you look, the light will appear the same. Color tones change in the shade. Warm tones increase, but they tend to lose some saturation, and things get moodier. This can work in your favor, if you choose the right scene, or against you when the image appears flat and lifeless. Below are two photos of the exact scene one with sunlight, and one beneath a cloud. These were taken seconds apart as a cloud shadow skidded by.

While not keeper shots for other reasons (composition sucks), it does illuminate (see what I did there?) the difference between the light. In this case, the cross/sunlight is better at bringing out the color but creates a high contrast scene.

But cloudy light can be effective. The image below, in more open forest, would be heavily dappled in bright sunlight, but in the clouds, the evenly lit scene comes together.

In this horizontal version of the same scene, you can see the background has sunlight hitting it. That works here, because the most important part of the frame, the foreground is evenly lit.

I've got a few more days of good autumn color coming up, so I plan to take advantage of it as much as I can. It won't last, and it only happens once a year, so if you live or are visiting somewhere with good autumn color, don't put it off. AND pay attention to that light. It matters.