Along the Clear Fork

Fall colors are rolling through the trees and floating down the river.  Our first wave of leaves went yellow and have fallen in the last ten days or so.  Last week I photographed them in the trees and this week as the floated on the Clear Fork. It was a whole different experience of photography and a different feeling of fall. 

It is a refreshing difference after the long summers we have here in Texas.

The leaves crunching underfoot.  The cool crisp mornings.  The yellows of fall in the trees.

The seemingly endless blue sky of the last few weeks had given way to cloud cover and it made the day even more autumn like.

I wandered the gravel bars of the river looking for patches of leaves, pools of water, and compositions that might work to put it all together.

Big yellow leaves of some tree that I have no idea what it is- you know, the big yellow kind :-)   making an ideal foreground to look downstream.  The second wave of color in trees to complete the shot.

Later in the morning I wandered the banks of the river and found this one tree jutting out over the river like an arm.  Leaves pooled on the surface of the river.  More leaves floated slowly past.  I knew I could get another image here if I could just slow the shutter enough to get a 10 second exposure.  Luckily the cloudy day and polariser did the trick and  I got just enough motion to get the shot.

Downstream I find even more color floating on the river and lining the bank.  I think there is another image to be made and hop around on rocks until I find the angle that has the nice leading lines of the water moving into the color of distant trees.

It ends up being over five hours of wandering the river with the camera and making over 200 images.  I would easily call it one of the finest days I have ever had photographing locally.  Fall color, cloudy sky, and a river-I call it a trifecta.