At the Edge of Autumn

At the Edge of AutumnThe last bit of golden aspen leaves in a grove at the base of Crested Butte Mountain under a blanket of fresh snow.

Most of us photographers like to make our photos on the edges. Sunset and sunrise are the edges of a day. Seasons have edges too when you can't really tell which season you're looking at. Is it fall? Is it winter? Is it both?

The edges of seasons are probably my favorite time to photograph the landscape. These edges are transitions to what comes next. Sometimes it's exciting. Sometimes it's a little depressing. Maybe introspective is a better description than depressing!

I love finding colorful aspen trees surrounded by early snows. I love the contrast which makes the golden leaves stand out against the background. I love the exciting feeling of changing weather and even the promise of a colorless landscape for the next 4-6 months. Our first snows are usually more of a sugar-frosting kind of thing than a huge dump of fresh powder. They are very photogenic if I get out early enough. They don't last very long. The minute the sun hits the dusting of snow, it's gone. That's probably another reason I like making photographs at the edges. The beauty is fleeting and ephemeral.

"At the Edge of Autumn" is a scene I found at the base of Crested Butte Mountain almost exactly three years ago. My longer, telephoto lens helps compress the distance from front to back and makes the scene look a little steeper than it actually is. It also helps isolate the stand of bright yellow aspen trees at the base. This image is also a study in textures ranging from hard granite at the top to sugar-frosted pines and golden aspen trees in the rest of the scene. All these contrasts help create an interesting scene "At the Edge of Autumn".