Carpet Of Red
When the sun peeked out from behind the clouds the red forest floor lit up like magic!
I was exploring some new areas in The Pinelands this autumn and I was driving on a sand road deep in a part of the forest that I had never been in before. The driving took a lot of attention to avoid doing any damage to the Jeep - some water, deep holes, fallen branches, and a narrow winding road all conspired to make me wonder if this was such a good idea. But turning around now would be admitting defeat and I couldn't do that!
I noticed the soft red autumn color of the wild blueberry bushes here and there. And then I came to a section of the forest where the entire floor was simply covered in them. And when the sun briefly came out, it lit them up from behind to create an incredible red glow, deep in the forest.
I started walking around to see if I could come up with a composition that would convey the feeling I had felt when I saw the forest floor light up. It's surprisingly difficult to make good images in the forest and most often they fall flat in terms of communicating what I felt. I found an isolated oak tree among the pine trunks and red forest floor and waited for the sun to come back out. It eventually did and I was rewarded with an image that really does show what I felt - the expansiveness of the red forest floor, the soft glow of red filtered light as far as I could see, the backlit gold leaves of the lone oak, and the mesmerizing patterns of the pine trunks.
It's been a great autumn for photography and so I have been sharing a couple extra images. Don't worry, there's no extra charge for the additional posts! :) And I'll probably drop back to once a month as the weather turns. Hope you are enjoying this extended autumn too!