by Michael Frye | Oct 29, 2014 | Photography Tips, Vision and Creativity
Late-afternoon sun in an aspen grove, Eastern Sierra. Backlight makes autumn leaves glow, but to avoid lens flare you have to either shade the lens (if the sun is out of the frame), or partially hide the sun behind a tree, as I did here.
Light is a vital aspect of any photograph, and always the first thing I think about when deciding where to go with my camera. The more you understand light, the better your photographs will be.
Any kind of light can work for fall color – under the right circumstances. But some kinds seem to work better than others. While photographing and leading workshops in the eastern Sierra, I was usually looking for backlight or soft light on the aspens – or best of all, soft backlight.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 14, 2014 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Aspen-covered hillside, yesterday afternoon, near Bridgeport, California
I’m back on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, my home mountains, getting ready for our upcoming workshops. There’s some great color over here. I made this photograph yesterday afternoon up near Bridgeport, and especially liked the mix of colors on this hillside, with yellow, gold, orange, and green.
Overall, the color looks pretty typical for mid-October. The higher elevation aspens are mostly bare, but the lower-elevation trees are a mix of green, yellow, and orange. The color progression might be a little earlier than average, but not much. If there’s anything unusual, it’s that some typically early-changing groves are still mostly green, while other groves that usually turn later have progressed further.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 5, 2013 | Photography Tips
Aspens and pines in an autumn snowstorm, Toiyabe NF, CA, USA; 1/8 sec at f/22, ISO 50
In October I fulfilled a long-time dream: to photograph autumn aspens in the snow. I posted one photograph from that snowy day here, and two more from the following morning here. But I made a lot of other images during that storm, and now finally have a chance to show you some of them.
On that snowy October day it was a challenge to keep my camera dry, keep snow and water drops off the lens, and stay warm myself. But it was a rare opportunity, and I didn’t want to wait until the snow stopped, because the falling snow itself gave the photographs an ethereal quality, almost like fog.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 14, 2013 | Announcements, Workshops
Aspen grove, late afternoon, Lee Vining Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA
If you’re not subscribed to my email list you missed the announcement of my Eastern Sierra Fall Color: Composition and Creativity Among the Aspens workshop next fall. We had such a great response to this offering that it sold out the first day! But the good news is that we decided to run a second edition of this course from October 20-23, 2013, and there are still a few spots available.
I made the accompanying photograph during the first edition of this workshop last October. We photographed this aspen grove late in the afternoon as the lowering sun backlit the yellow leaves. This was my favorite image from that spot, but I saw many interesting, unusual compositions by everyone else that afternoon, both on the back of people’s cameras and later during image reviews. You can see some of the participant’s photographs in this Flickr group.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 24, 2012 | Vision and Creativity, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Backlit aspens, Saturday afternoon
Mike Osborne and I just completed our Eastern Sierra Fall Color workshop this past weekend. It was a lot of fun—wonderful people, beautiful weather, and lots of color.
The focus of this workshop was composition and creativity, and it was great to see the participants growing and learning during the class. I saw a lot of beautiful compositions and imaginative ideas on the back of people’s cameras and in the evening image-review sessions.
One of the things we talked about during this class was the creative process. This process varies from one person to another, of course, and can also change depending on the situation and subject. Sometimes—especially with my nighttime work—I plan out every detail in advance. At other times—particularly if I’m in what Mike calls a “target-rich environment,” with interesting subjects and light—then I tend to work quickly, reacting to the changing light and photographing whatever catches my eye at that moment.
The accompanying photographs show a small demonstration of that “reactive” process in an aspen grove on Saturday afternoon. When we first arrived at this spot the trees were in the sun, and the backlit orange leaves against the blue sky were a striking sight. We all tried different compositions—looking up, looking into the sun, using both wide-angle and telephoto lenses. Of my own images, I ended up liking the wide-angle frame at the top of this post the best, with the sun about to dip behind the background ridge.
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