An Autumn Postcard – Wanderings in the Shoulder Season
- nwriversphotograph
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn
a mosaic of them all." –Stanley Horowitz from a 1983 Reader's Digest poem.
This is a wonderful quote that sums up the year in photography as well. The fast-approaching grey days and snow of winter will lend itself to those stark but beautiful black and white images (etchings). Next spring will bring the primary color palettes of nature back, along with the rain and new growth, so watercolors are the perfect symbolism here. And the bright, warm, and vibrant colors that follow clearly evoke the sunny days of summer.
But, at least for me, the fall season truly is the annual blending (mosaic) of nature, color, and light!
For most photos, the best time to have your camera set up is the golden and blue hours of sunrise and sunset. In the fall, the sun’s angle (much lower) provides beautiful golden hour light throughout the day. On most summer morning photoshoots, I pretty much head home around nine in the morning as the brilliant afternoon light is too harsh for quality images. But in the fall, the light remains warm and golden throughout the day and into the evening, everything seems clearer, colors deepen, and highlights take over. Throw in autumn colors, misty mornings, the ongoing natural glow of the shoulder season, passing storms, and fall is just a delightful time to pull out your camera and capture those magnificent landscapes.
This year has been a heavy travel year for me and my wife Stephanie. Several months along the west coast and across the southwest, another month in British Columbia’s (BC) Great Bear Rainforest, two trips to Yellowstone for wildlife, another BC trip to the Sunshine Coast, and a late November 2024 trip to Haines Alaska. Looking back, it seems I have been away more than I have been home – not a complaint, as each trip has been unique and wonderful.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at home, still reviewing my photos from the Great Bear, and contemplating the upcoming winter season and my spending a few quiet months here in Bellingham. Looking out the front window, I watched as yellow leaves from our big leaf maple covered the patio. Out in back, our Japanese maple shrouded the yard in brilliant reds. The sudden need to immerse myself in autumn colors (often referred to as “larch madness”) hit hard!
My go to destination for the fall season is Yellowstone. Most visitors clear out in late October, although that is changing and sometimes it takes the first dump of snow to slow the tourism. From Bellingham, it’s a relatively quick trip along Route 90, and, if I have time, I can swing south through the Tetons, look for moose, and then stop to visit my friends in Boise.
So, I took a look at the weather, and it seemed I might have found that last beautiful week before the roads close in the park. The night before I left, there were storm warnings for the park with the potential for over eighteen inches of snow … but that never happened and I had clear sailing with no snow except a little morning ice at the higher elevations crossing over to Lamar Valley.
I also was interested in seeing how the park was faring during the government shut down? When I arrived at the Gardiner entrance, I was greeted by a friendly park staffer who just asked if I needed a map? No checking of passes or ID. I thanked him for staying on the job.
Most facilities had already closed for winter, and most roads would close in a few days (November 1). The park was sunny, relatively warm (just below freezing in early morning, and into the fifties midafternoon) and … there was no one there! No lines to get in, and I had the roads to myself with just a smattering of other cars. The perfect time to be in Yellowstone.
Unfortunately, I somehow messed up my back (too much driving?) and so I only got one day in the park on this trip. But what a day. I spent most of it sitting along Slough Creek, watching a bear (too far off for photos) setting up his/her den in a thicket along the riverbank. While I’d rather spend more time there, with bear, moose, new snow up high, and colors all along the rivers and streams, I’ll take a day with one bear (and a few sheep, buffalo, and pronghorn) anytime.
While it was frustrating to know I couldn’t stay in all this grandeur, the drive across eastern Washington, the northern Idaho panhandle, and southwestern Montana (going and coming back) in fall is just breath taking. Entire valleys, mountains, and far-off ridges of subalpine (Larix lyallii) and western (Larix occidentalis) larch; along each stream white and yellow quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) mixed with willow and black cottonwood. Golden-yellow was everywhere. As the sun came up, the entire road before and around me turned to luminous gold. Just north of Route 90 where I was driving, near Seeley Lake in Montana, is a thousand-year-old larch called Gus. The oldest and largest larch (over one-hundred-fifty feet) around. While I didn’t see that largest larch on this trip, I was very content to make do with volume – larch by the thousands, climbing the peaks, winking in the sun, and lighting the way to and from one of my favorite parks.
And this luminosity stayed for hours each way. It was like driving in a dream of yellow, soothing my soul mile by mile.
On the trip home, I started to get some rain and fog. That, mixed with the predominance of yellow surrounding me, created a whole new vision of diffuse light and texture, a rainbow over the mountains, and a stunning backdrop for the fall color – ridge after ridge after ridge.
I drove home in all this glory and color, lost in emotion and remembering all that I had experienced over the past week, longing for home, and the promise of future colors, trips, and the approaching winter to come. That next photography transition from fall mosaic to winter etchings in black and white.
"I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it." –Lee Maynard
