Yellow giants
Walking among aspens
Walking among aspens
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Sep, 2020Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in Flagstaff, Arizona during the few weeks in October when we get fall colors in the San Francisco Mountains.Time
Because of how rare it is to see the changing leaves here in Arizona it has become extremely popular in recent years. Since we knew this going in we decided to drive up the night before right after work and start the hike as soon as the sun was coming up to avoid crowds. This helped because when we arrived there was only two other cars so that allowed an empty foreground for the picture. By the time we reached this point it was around 9AM and there was more light creeping in which helped light up the leaves a bit more which really adds to these kinds of fall photos.Lighting
Being in higher elevation you do need to wait a bit longer for the sun to get higher in the sky to give you the kind of lighting you want for the picture. But as we mentioned earlier we started when the sun was coming up so we could get to where we wanted to be when the lighting was still somewhat soft but provided more color to the leaves.Equipment
For this shoot since we were hiking the photo was taken handheld using a Sony a6300 and a 18-105mm f4 lens to keep things light and give some more range to offer some compression for the photo. Most of the times we avoid bringing lots of equipment since we do a lot of outdoor and travel photography which can be more difficult with extra equipment.Inspiration
The year before this was taken we had tried to go take pictures but due to crowds and a later starting time we weren't able to get to the most densely colorful areas prior to sunset. Because of this we decided to try again and learned from our mistakes to avoid similar outcomes. We knew further down the trail there were areas like this with winding paths through the trees and a leading shot like this showing the height of the trees with a simple foreground was what we were looking for.Editing
Processing for this photo along with all the others were done only through Lightroom. Aside from the color corrections and general adjustments there wasn't really much else to do!In my camera bag
Being still relatively new to photography (2.5 years) there is still a lot of learning going on and that has kept equipment relatively simple. For almost all cases we will only have our 18-105 f4 lens on our Sony a6300. Unless there is the need to do only portrait photography we will switch to a faster 1.4 Sigma 30mm. Aside from that if we need something to set up with we generally take a gorilla pod due to the variability it provides and very rarely a standard tripod just because it's harder to carry. And depending on what we are going to shoot we might also bring our GoPro Hero 7 Black and our DJI Mavic Air along with our iPhone 12 pro for quick videos/pictures.Feedback
The biggest advice for any fall color photos would definitely be to plan ahead. The recent popularity in not only fall colors but also exploring outdoors has led to larger crowds than usual. Because of this it can make it harder to get the shot you want or even get to the place you want to go because of restrictions. For any location make sure to know when the leaves will be at their peak and arrive with enough time to get into the place you want to be and set up your shot. Even if you don't get the shot you want it honestly is hard to beat the views you get with your own eyes even if you cant capture them on camera!
