Technicolor Canopy

I have a love-hate relationship with Autumn. I love the bright colors, the cool crisp air, and everything to do with cinnamon, apple, and pumpkin spices. On the...
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I have a love-hate relationship with Autumn. I love the bright colors, the cool crisp air, and everything to do with cinnamon, apple, and pumpkin spices. On the flip side, I hate that my autumn birthday combines with a handful of painful memories to remind me of an all-too-fragile mortality. It's also the first herald of winter, in an area where winters tend to be dreary, grey and brown, and lacking in all the things that make winters up north bearable.

Each year, I try to focus on the best parts of autumn, and pack my schedule with as much time in the woods as I can afford. Whether that means camping, hiking, hunting, photography, or just finding a quiet piece of dirt to sit and think, doesn't matter nearly as much as just being there. So, last autumn, while hiking through the Smokies, I was lamenting that the majority of the color had passed peak, except where it was picking up shafts of direct sunlight. My fiancée then, in response to my laments, looked up and gasped. Looking to see what she saw, I was wowed by a canopy still showing the full panoply of color that I love about autumn. I laughed out loud, as I realized that she had gotten me with my own photography advice to her - when things don't look quite right, try a new perspective. This was my new perspective, and I'm glad that she was there to help me find it.
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