I'm going to show you how I've taken some photos using the fall colors in
late September in the mountains of northern Washington State I am at
picture Lake which is about a two-hour drive from Vancouver British Columbia
Canada and maybe about two hours from Seattle Washington and this is in the
Mount Baker National Forest and picture Lake is well-known for reflections of
Mount Shuksan that reflect off the water and hence the name picture Lake is a
gorgeous place so follow me and I will show you how I've taken the pictures
from this location and why fall colors are just the perfect type of photography
for landscapes
so what's cool about this place is that it's so close to the road in some ways
we don't even deserve to be here without having to have hiked a really long way I
just parked the car right over there I've taken about 20 steps and then right
around the corner is the shooting spot completely not fair but so awesome so I
was concerned that the fall colors wouldn't be out yet because it's still
what's the date today the 24th of September and I see reds greens yellows
this place is blooming in fall colors it looks absolutely fantastic I couldn't be
happier and I'm pretty sure if we get good reflections off the lake if the
wind stays calm then we're gonna get awesome photos of the mountain in the
background
this is such landscape awesomeness so right in the middle of
this boardwalk is actually one of the best places to shoot because the top of
the mountain that is reflected almost hits the shoreline but doesn't cross
that line of the shoreline you always have to be cognizant of what your
reflections are going to look like and if anything is going to interrupt your
reflections
I always use a wired trigger a wired shutter remote put that on and then this
way I don't have to touch the camera when I'm actually taking the photo
so I'm actually changing lenses now and putting on more of a wide-angle lens I'm
putting on a 24 millimeter that way I can hopefully capture most of the scene
and because the Sun is just coming everywhere I'm gonna make sure I put on
this lens hood and don't forget to level of the ball head
so rule number one... I've just arrived and I want to avoid any sad mistakes that I'll discover when I get
home and look at the photos on my computer so the first thing zero the
camera I go into manual mode and I make sure that the ISO is where I want it to
be I want the lowest number and for me that's ISO 64 I'm shooting with f11 so I
have a lot of depth of field but not too much on that aperture tightening because
it introduces a noise factor when you go over let's say F 13 I've got the remote
trigger connected I'm using autofocus at this point and I'm actually my focus
point is going to be on the nearest shoreline and I'm going to check out how
that works I think that that should give me enough focus all the way through the
shot let's take the first photo and just quickly check the histogram because it's
all about the histogram so there's the first photo taken it looks maybe a bit
bright but now I look at the histogram and I can see that it's bunched up over
on the right hand side so 1 2 3 4 I've gone for stops so it's at 125th of a
second take the picture look at the histogram and now I'm where
I want to be
so unfortunately the wind just came up and it caused a ripple on the lake and
this is the age-old problem for landscape photographers that the wind is
often the enemy of reflections so now I just wait I'm just going to sit and wait
and have patience and hope that the wind will die down and we'll get that flat
smooth glassy water and get the reflections back
so the wind just finally died down again and I was able to get another couple of shots with some
really nice reflection and it just shows that the patience pays off in landscape
photography you can't just expect to show up and nail a ten out of ten photo
you have to wait especially if reflections are involved because the
wind is just the reflection killer so let's take another one
so I see some cool compositions on the other side of the lake so I'm going to
let's go to live to try and get those with the zoom lens and zoom right into 200 mm.
let's go to live view and just take a look at the shoreline there that's a little bit of
an abstract type photo with those reflections there so look at the surface
of the water now the wind has died down and it's given us the glassy perfectly
smooth mirror image that looks so awesome in photos as it's the perfect
reflection I couldn't be better love it absolutely love it
so here's the thing with landscape photography there's so many people who think that you need the
best gear or you need to be an absolute expert in post-processing using
Lightroom and Photoshop and really it's so much less about that then being at
the right place at the right time and working on your composition and your
storytelling with your landscape photos so I try whenever possible to travel and
go on these types of trips when the weather is such that I'm going to get
the best photos or when the seasons are such this is the fall this is late
September and now all the leaves are turning into the fall colors which makes
the most incredible photos it's more about being at the right place at the
right time with the right composition than it is about your gear or your
post-processing you've got to get out there and shoot at
a time like this when the foliage looks like this
so I see a really cool shot with a leading line of this pathway
Let's try and grab that.
no question about it the fall is the most beautiful time for
landscape photography and what's kind of interesting is that the colors in the
mountains when you're at higher elevation like five thousand feet six
thousand feet 2,000 meters the colors turn two weeks three weeks
before the rest of the world at the lower elevations so it gives more
variety over time to be able to go out and shoot the fall colors get the high
elevations really early and then the lower elevations are later into October
so if you enjoyed this video and found value from it please give it a thumbs up
please leave a comment here's a question of the day where do you shoot your fall
color photography do you have any trips planned do you do things differently
than I do and if you like this type of landscape photography video then please
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thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video