Foliage options
Asher Kelman said:
I see there's a lot of possibilites including fall flower, right now in the foreground.
Why don't you keep us informed. A from the ground f11 28 mm shot to the yellow-orange flowers with the trees in the b.g. would be interesting.
I was surprised to see as many flowers as I did. I don't think they'll be around too much longer, so I'll have to go prepared for some semi-macro shots as well as using them in the fg as you suggest. My wife was already mad at me for disappearing as I did. She's busy Saturday, so I can go on my own and not have to worry about boring her to tears.
I'm thinking I may head back up this weekend instead of going to the AHRMA races. Both occur only once per year, but I think I'll focus on landscape for now, especially since I have a workshop with Alain in December. Might as well develop some more bad habits before then....
We've had a couple of pretty cold nights already this week, down in the low 40s in town. If it hasn't frozen up in the Pecos already it has to be very close, and they're talking about snow over 9500' tonight. I suspect the trees will come along very quickly now.
I hope you could feed Tim Armes large uncorrected images via yousendit.com (one image at a time) as you progress in this project. You images would be perfect for optimization and retouch. You or Tim could select which one to post in the Retouch Forum if you would like to do that.
I'll see what I can come up with. That shot was taken with my recently acquired EF-S 10-22 and I'm really struggling to deal with
everything being in the frame. I went on a short hike with just that lens and this is one of the better images, taken at 22mm. I've got to learn to see wide-angle.
Noe for those who might want to visit, when is best and what locations would you suggest. Are there inexpensive Inn's in that area?
There are a lot of aspen forests in northern NM. It's about a 2hr drive to this particular location from Albuquerque. An hour less if you stay in Santa Fe, which also puts you closer to Taos. ~1.5hrs southeast from Abq is a place called 4th of July Canyon that has lots of maples, rather unusual for NM. Being further south and not as high it's probably at least a few weeks out.
I would highly recommend the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO. That goes through some gorgeous country with lots of aspens. Not a bad base camp, either, for finding fall color.
I suspect this weekend will be too early in the Pecos, but you can see that the aspens are beginning to turn in the very high country. With this cold snap I'm guessing they'll be really going next weekend.
Lots of places to stay in Abq, SF, Taos, plus some bed and breakfasts scattered around. You definitely have the full range of prices available.
The Weather Channel
tracks foliage as well.
Here the number of devciduous trees is not overwhleming, but the evergreens do add an interesting color contrast.
As you get higher you get more aspens. Those are probably cottonwoods down in the river bottom. Higher up you'll find groves of nothing but aspens.