My favorite season is fall with all of the foliage turning vibrant yellows, oranges and reds.  Some years the colors aren’t as striking, which was the case in the fall of 2013 in Southeast Iowa.  I had scouted several areas in Van Buren county, and certainly in Lacey Keosauqua State Park, estimating it would be another week before peak fall color.  However, one week later, most of the tree lines had turned brown with some trees still green.  Frustrating for sure when you have driven 1500 miles to photograph beautiful autumn color!  I decided to try to make lemonade out of lemons as I had traveled so far.

It was a chilly and windy fall day with the temperature in the 40’s that morning.  The winds were so high, even shooting at ISO 800 I couldn’t stop all the movement.  At the time I was upset to not be getting the visualized images that had been bouncing around in my mind. Now a year later, the movement in the image tells the story of that day and  I like it.

The image below had been sitting on my hard drive unprocessed for over a year until last week. I was challenged on a social media site to post a black and white photo a day for 5 days and challenge another photographer each day.  If you have been following me for a while, you know I typically have colorful images.  Going through my archives to see what I could find, this image caught my attention.  What if I processed it in black and white?  Would it still be a lifeless image?  As it turns out, the image is stronger and one of my favorite black and white images!  So much so, I am having a print made for myself.  And I want to shoot this same scene in winter!  Click on the photo to see a high resolution image or to purchase a print.  It is also in the gallery for Monochrome Madness #36 on Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY blog.

There was one lone orange tree in the distance up on the hill.  Wanting to capture some bright orange, I moved closer and zoomed in on the area.  What I saw through the viewfinder was an autumn scene reminiscent of a tapestry.  You can also click on this image to see a high resolution version or to purchase a print.