Highway 88 fall colors October 2012

This is my second year attempting to capture fall colors, last year was on the East Coast.

The fall color reports you find on Google are very accurate, so I knew heading out that the colors would not be vibrant, but this was my only opportunity to spend a day photographing so I headed out with my friend Earlene.

We met up at 7:00am in Placerville, on Highway 50 and headed east to Highway 89 south, Luther Pass towards Highway 88, Carson Pass Highway... destination Hope Valley. Nothing significant to photograph on the way. We turned west on Highway 88 to Hope Valley. It was important for us to get to Hope Valley early enough to ensure the lighting was good. Weather reports yesterday said it would be cloudy, but luckily it was a beautiful sunny day.

We saw the "barn" that everyone photographs but didn't stop. We decided to go a mile past the "barn" for our first stop.

 

We continued up Highway 88 and saw a dirt road and decided to do a little off roading. This was a fun stop. There were a lot of aspen trees in the location. Notice the two close up photos of the aspens. When I was taking this picture I didn't notice the names carved on the left tree. I thought I would try my hand at retouching on this picture. The second picture is the edited photo, removing the names Paul and Hillary.

 

As we continue up Highway 88 we noticed a barn so we made one of the many u-turns we would take today to go back and photograph.  As we gather our bags, tripods and cameras to walk through a fenced area, we found not only a barn but a cabin and an outbuilding. The ground was very wet, it was very marshy. Good thing I brought extra socks and shoes because to get these photos my shoes got wet.

Our next stop up Highway 88 was Caples Lake. I was hoping I could capture reflections of color in the lake. With the limited color on the trees today I was fortunate to get a couple of pictures with the effect I was looking for. By this time the sun was overhead (almost direct sunlight) on the two pictures with trees but the sun was behind me for the picture of the hillside.

 

 

One more u-turn to stop at this vista point to take in the beauty of this valley. (Note to self... document the names of the vista points or look outs where I stop.)

The last stop before heading back to Placerville was Silver Lake. As you can see by the picture the lake was very low and mirkly along the shoreline.



We took the Mormon Emigrant Trail back to Highway 50. This is a beautiful drive, sorry I didn't take any pictures, Earlene and I spent most of the time talking and enjoying the fresh air and scenery.

We stopped at the Apple Cafe just outside of Placerville right on Highway 50 for lunch and enjoyed their outdoor patio.  A great place to eat and relax enjoying the view. This cafe is very crowded during this time of year because of the tourists heading up to Apple Hill.

 

Ok time for lessons learned and things worth noting.

1. TIMING:
I think we did a great job timing the trip with the sun. It is very important to spend the time to plan your day in advance to make sure you don't miss out on the correct lighting.

2. LENSES:
I primarily used two lenses on this trip, my Nikon 50mm and my Sigma 150x500mm. I really need to get another camera body so I can keep a lens on each and better utilize the appropriate lens for the location.  After reviewing my pictures (too late to do anything about it now) I realized I should have used one additional lens this day, my Nikon 55x300mm.