Chasing the Local Landscape

When most people think of going out for landscape photos they think road trip.  Going to the Grand Canyon, or Yosemite, or the like . Not many people think of photographing the landscape where they live. 

I talk to the local photographers here in Fort Worth and they all want to travel west.  They tell me there is nothing to photograph here.  They all complain about a lack of mountains, scenery and fall color .

While the mountain part is true, I find the local area quite scenic and have found many neat locations for landscape photography. The local knowledge I have here has allowed me to find rivers, bluffs, waterfalls and more.  I have even found we have great fall color, you just have to know when and where to look. 

I spent a lot of time this past week chasing fall color and photographing in locations, none farther than ten miles from home .

Thanksgiving is typically the peak of our fall color .The cedar elms and sumac turn in late October, then a progression of trees until the red oaks peak in late November.  Add in the Japanese maples in our local Japanese Garden and I have some great color this week.

As always, the weather is fickle and I have to adapt. It was clear, cold and still last Wednesday.  Normally that is not good, but I know an area along the West Fork with a lot of red oaks and found it in fog!  For a short while I had some moody fog and color to work with.  

On Thanksgiving morning last Thursday, I went out on an overcast sky and walk along the Clear Fork finding more fall colors and a great view off a small hill.  

Friday morning was overcast at dawn and I went to a local park where there is another nice amount of red oaks. When the weather cleared off we went to our Japanese Garden where the maples were in vivid red.  I liked it so much I went back on Sunday .

Saturday was a day of a nice sunrise that I caught along the West Fork at a waterfall I regularly visit. Between the waterfall, a good sunrise and the fall color it was a great morning.

Add in going out to our local nature center the previous weekend and I have had a great week of chasing landscape images locally. 

I am still downloading images to the computer with many to look through. All of these are from my phone while I will spend the next several days sorting and processing well over a thousand images taken this week. 

I encourage any photograph to explore where they live.  Find a place, explore it and make it your own.  It is likely you will be the only photgrapher out there and you will have a collection of images no one else does.