Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Outdoor Photographer

The fall colors of New England and Colorado are at the top of every outdoor photographer’s destinations, but the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California have been growing in popularity as an alternative to these locations. With multiple roads climbing into the mountains as high as 10,000 feet, the range allows photographers to shoot brightly colored aspen groves and flowing creeks set against the dramatic backdrop of John Muir’s “range of light.” By shooting at peak elevations in late September and working down slope as winter comes to the high country, in a good year photographers can shoot peak fall colors for more than a month. The “eastside,” as it is known to locals, offers great roadside access to aspen groves and alpine lakes. For the more…

Fall in the Northeast is one of those reliable natural events that landscape photographers mark on their calendar with giddy excitement. The intensity of color may vary from year to year, as does the timing of its peak, but fall never fails to provide ample scenery worthy of a good photo. Foliage season is short, however. Fall colors may start to appear in the far north in mid-September, and can linger in southern New England and New York into mid-November, but the full spectacle of peak foliage usually lasts only a few days. Exact timing varies from year to year, but peak in northern New England and New York usually occurs between October 1st and Columbus Day, and generally peaks in the southern part of the region during the last…

In this year’s Fall Color Special Issue, we offer a selection of guides for photographing prime locations for autumn photography in every time zone, from California and Colorado to Michigan and the Northeast, plus a collection of top national parks. QT Luong has experienced all 59 of our national parks, making over 300 trips, as William Sawalich notes in his introduction to “Ten National Parks For Fall Foliage.” Luong showcases his favorite parks for autumnal displays, which include iconic destinations as well as some you might not think of. Even at those often-photographed destinations, you can create unique images by moving beyond the popular spots. In Glacier National Park, for example, Luong notes, “At Saint Mary Lake, most photographers head for the iconic view at the Wild Goose Overlook. Instead,…

LOCATION Cowee Mountain Overlook is located at Milepost 430 of the Blue Ridge Parkway. At 469 miles long, the parkway is the longest linear park in America, running through 29 counties in Virginia and North Carolina along the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. The parkway was named the most-visited site in the park system this year, according to the National Park Service. Cowee Mountain Overlook offers a photographer’s sanctuary because of its breathtaking panoramic views of mountain ridges. Blue Ridge Parkway offers plenty of spots for roadside picnics, breathtaking vistas and easy to difficult hiking trails. Using the milepost system, you can easily find points of interest along the way. WEATHER Climate depends on latitude, elevation and topography, and varies from one point to the next on the Blue…

Colorado is the best place in the nation to shoot golden aspen groves nestled beneath snowcapped, 14,000-foot peaks. After 23 years of shooting fall foliage in Colorado, I’m on a first-name basis with every colorful aspen grove in the state. Here’s my guide to the best three regions for fall-color photography—the Aspen area, Kebler Pass and the San Juan Mountains. You can comfortably shoot all three regions in a one-week trip. Timing a fall-color shoot is a mix of art and science. One day of strong wind can strip all the leaves from a perfect grove. One night with a hard freeze, with temperatures in the low 20s, can turn all the golden leaves an ugly mustard brown. As a general rule, I prefer groves that are green and gold…

This photo depicts not only the conditions at the time of capture, but also serves as a metaphor for the status of caribou living in the Kenai Lowlands. Historical records indicate that before the 1900s, the caribou on the Kenai Peninsula were common, but probably not abundant. It came as no surprise when the endemic woodland population was listed as extinct around 1912 due to overhunting and habitat loss from human-caused fires. The existing four caribou herds on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge are the result of reintroduction efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. However, due to continued exposure to human disturbance, the Kenai Lowlands Caribou Herd (KLCH) has grown slowly compared to…

QT Luong is an expert on photographing in the national parks. Over the past 23 years, he’s made more than 300 visits to all 59 parks. That’s 13 trips each year for a generation. Who better to turn to, then, to find the best places to photograph colorful fall foliage in the national parks? “I really enjoy traveling in the autumn,” Luong says, “for the sense of change in the seasons as well as for practical reasons like lesser visitation, moderate temperatures and manageable daylight hours. I’ve been trying to catch fall color in each of the national parks where it is found—almost all of them except for some tropical and desert areas.” In his new book, Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America’s National Parks, Luong shares more than…

Picture the most vibrant Kodachrome slide you have ever seen. Now imagine looking down from a mountaintop at tens of thousands of treetops as vibrant and far more moving than that slide. That is one of many bucket-list-quality, super-real autumn views we have experienced in our home state of Michigan. Michigan abounds with fall color and spectacular woodland and water’s edge locations to catch it. We clear our calendar of all non-essentials in October and chase the color and light southward from the northern borders of the Upper Peninsula to the southern borders of the Lower Peninsula. Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park at the west end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a photographer’s paradise because of that bird’s-eye view and an exhausting supply of other autumn forest, river, waterfall and…

What if you had four arms, two brains and two computers? I don’t know about you, but I would develop more than one image at a time to double the speed of my Lightroom workflow. That would be your answer too, right? Alas, we are all stuck with working on one image at a time due to our limited anatomy. However, that doesn’t mean we are all doomed to envisioning the development of just one image at a time, and I certainly encourage photographers to think beyond the individual frame. There’s real value in considering your body of work as a whole when developing your images. Images can fit together as essays, projects, themes or stories, and a body of work can exhibit a much broader context, and thus contain…