North Cascades National Park New Images- Fall Foliage
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My second goal in visiting North Cascades National Park was to photograph some fall foliage there, especially since I had photographed fall foliage in each corner of the US, except in the North West.
The first source of fall foliage color I found on that trip was provided by maple trees, in particular vine maples that can turn a bright orange not often seen on the West Coast (and California in particular). I found a few pockets of those trees along the Cascade River Road. The rain was falling all day. This made it a bit difficult to work, but it provided a perfectly soft light. The wetness of the leaves enhanced the colors, once a polarizing filter was used to reduce the glare. For fall foliage forest photography, I’ll take rain over sunny weather any day. I looked for mossy boulders to include in the compositions. Their electric-green color complemented well the orange-red of the leaves.
At those northern latitudes, there is a more impressive source of fall foliage color. Berry plants blanket the sub-alpine elevations, and can turn whole mountain slopes crimson when the conditions are right. Normally, late September would be have been a good time to witness this event in the North Cascades, but it appears that the fall colors were late this year. Instead of looking for large autumn landscapes, I sought intimate scenes in the forest. After covering a lot of terrain, on the fifth, and last day of my visit, I eventually ran on a beautiful patch in the forest with a variety of reds and yellows. The foggy weather was just perfect for that scene, and the dark spruce trees added to the color contrast.
Lovely photos! We’re trying to add a large portion of the lower Cascade River to the National Park – if you like this area and want to prevent this forest from ever meeting the chainsaws, go to http://www.americanalps.org – thank you!