A Dusting at Wagner's Run (November Image, John Heinz/Allied Services Calendar)

 

Over the past three years, it has been my pleasure to provide  the landscape photography for a unique publication. 

It is a calender, created and sold for the benefit of the pediatric rehabilitation programs at the John Heinz Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine in Wilkes Barre, and the Allied Services facility, in Scranton, both in my home region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. In an increasingly bottom-line oriented medical community, these programs are run rather altruistically: no child is refused services, regardless of their ability to pay.

The program serves a wide variety of children with a broad assortment of physical and developmental diagnosis. Many children receive services for years, if  not decades of their young lives. Through this rehabilitation, the children, many of whom are severely disabled, can have their functional status, and potential as adults strikingly improved.

The calendar will be available at all Allied and John Heinz facilities, and at a number of retailers throughout the region. The calendar can be previewed and ordered through the Allied Services/John Heinz website.

It is 9″by 12″ spiral bound, and printed on high quality glossy stock. I daresay that the print quality of the images for bulk printing, is quite high.

It priced at the princely sum of $6.

It makes a nice inexpensive holiday gift which you can really feel good about giving.

It’s certainly better than a fruitcake.

In my previous article: The Bleak Times of Year , I attempted to discuss the difficulties of shooting landscapes in our Appalachian late fall season.

 I neglected to discuss another strategy to obtain interesting images (though I  did, I believe, post an example of this strategy as the article’s original header image).

As it fall drifts into winter, the air gets colder… and drier, as the atmosphere at lower temperatures cannot hold as much moisture as when it is warmer. 

The “crisp fall air” has a striking effect at dawn at dusk, producing colorful, vivid sunrises and sunsets. Given the shorter daylight hours, they tend to occur at times more convenient for us sometimes lazy photographers . Add ice, or fall snow, and the effect is even more striking.

 I t goes without saying that you need to steady the camera in the kind of low light situations presented at the very beginning, and end of the day. Tripods are the usual answer, but I have used diverse solutions.

One morning on the Monday of after American Thanksgiving  I sat in my tree stand in the crisp pre-dawn stillness, waiting for the sun to rise and hopefully, a trophy buck to wander within rifle range. It was very cold that morning, and I remember hoping that the small amount of coffee in my thermos would be enough to keep me warm until the our break at lunch.

There are many different kinds of trophies however: I watched as the skies slowly brightened over a nearby ridge: the clear air and complex cloud patterns conspired to create a spectacular display that caused even the most ardent hunters in our group to lose focus on the task at hand, and gaze at the sky. 

In those days good gear took up a lot of space in my backpack. I had only a very modest Nikon point-and shoot camera with me which I sat on the top rail of my hunting stand,  and released the shutter with the self timer, to avoid camera shake.

Shooting horizon and sky in the low light period between day and night, you need to focus carefully, mindful of the fine filigree of leafless branches often silhouetted against the sky. You need to keep the ISOs low to avoid noise in the shadows.

This gives you something to do for the short run.

Soon the holiday decorations will be put out, the winter snow will fall, and the world will become visually interesting again.

Until then, if the earth’s scenery is dull and lifeless, shoot the sky.

November Evening Corn ( Panasonic G1, Lumix 14-45mm f3.5)

 

The leaves have mostly fallen. The forests, viewed from afar now reflect the grey of  tree bark, the light tan of beech leaves, which will stay on the trees till spring, and dull brown of spent foliage on the forest floor. 

At first glance, late fall in the Northeastern U.S. offer slim pickings for landscape photography.

After the blazing colors of mid fall, which occur in mid-October in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, Late October, and November can be an imaging challenge.  I’m the photographer for a calendar we publish every year. Shooting November’s image is a definitely feels more difficult than for other months (except perhaps March, and August).

The transition from autumn splendor to the dull scenery of late fall can occur fairly quickly. One good windy storm after “peak leaves” occur, and suddenly the colorful forest canopy is gone.  What had been a “target rich” photographic environment can vanish overnight.

 Still and all in some ways, I like the late season.  You need to be observant to be successful. You can’t always rely on the cheap thrill of iridescent sugar maples and crimson oaks.  No more cheerful outdoor scenes with people happily playing touch football, because in November, it’s getting cold, and the people are all inside watching football. To be effective and compelling, late fall photography needs to focus on subtle things.

Contrast is a wonderful theme for this season. If you look hard enough (and know where to look) there will always be residual color, even into the early winter.

First, in cool dry air of fall, sunsets become more spectacular even as the foliage fades.

 In our area, some maples and oaks delay their fall color, and hold their leaves until later in the year. Tamaracks can have brilliant yellows late in the year.  Shrubs such as Blueberry and Hawthorne retain their brilliant reds long after the main foliage has disappeared. One strategy is to find these stragglers, and feature their beauty in a way that juxtaposes it against the dull post-foliage background. Longer focal lengths and wider apertures can be useful to help isolate these small remaining patches of interest, and blur the background.

It’s helpful if your images depict a seasonal tradition, and hopefully for the audience, a pleasant memory. Scenes involving holidays are an obvious possibility.

  In our part of Pennsylvania, hunting, particularly deer hunting, is a deep-seated passion, and for many evokes strong memories of fellowship and traditions enjoyed in late autumn. I often rove the on the day before “buck season” to scout for interesting scenes among the hunting towns in the “Endless Mountains” region to the north of my home.

 Another opportunity involves the transition between seasons, and the scenes at the cusp can be worth recording. The first frost, a late fall dusting of snow,  the first freeze up of a forest pond, or an unexpected ice storm, offer opportunities to the alert photographer.

As always, good landscape images should tell a story, in this case of a natural world that is “battening down” to endure the cold months to come.

I believe, that the care and imagination one needs to find beauty in relatively bleak periods during the year, can make us cleverer photographers when seasons cooperate.