Autumn At The Creek
As I trudged along the trail through the woods, the sound of the creek kept me company, its happy chatter following every twist and turn. In brief snatches, I could see the water through the trees and undergrowth, but had no clear opportunity to catch a portrait. Then a bend in the creek and curve in the trail nearly touched at a point where the trees thinned just a little and left a gap. Studying the steep bank, I was able to find a way down, and after scrambling over a boulder, and squeezing under a fallen birch leaning from the high bank into the water, I reached a wash of broken rocks, where the water touched lightly as it curved away. Standing in the shallows, I had a clear view upstream, with the trees in fall color closing in around the bend, and the jumbled rocks, washed smooth, framing the scene. Tranquility base here: the photographer has landed.
Tech stuff: Although it was overcast and there was no direct light reaching into the ravine, there was still a lot of glare on the surface of the water, and I wanted to cut that, and allow the rocks below to be seen, so I used the circular polarizer. This also removed the sheen from the wet leaves, to let the full, rich fall colors come through. I zoomed in and aimed down enough to keep the small patches of bright sky from becoming a distraction, and I intentionally kept the image a bit dark, rather than letting the camera brighten it. Down in a ravine, deep in the woods, on an overcast, rainy day, the light was low, and it would look unnatural to make the image too bright.