I came upon this scene yesterday when I was in the area. Unfortunately, when I came upon it the first time, the sun was high in the sky and although the foliage was stunning, the light was less than interesting. The second time I came upon it, the farm in the background was in deep shadow. Basically, I hit it too early and too late. I decided to take the trip back tonight (40 minutes from home give or take five) and wait out the light. This area of Schoharie County is really rife with photo opportunities. So many beautiful farms and hillsides.

I took this photo from several angles. I really wanted to incorporate the glowing sugar maple in the foreground along with that larger row of trees that helped add a sense of scale to the valley below. Another five minutes and that farm would have once again been in shadow.

Timing is really everything in photography. We wait all year for color in the trees and then sometimes our vision of the image we want to make can come down to just minutes of possibility. In another week, this scene will look drastically different, as it did one week prior I'm sure. That's life.

Taken with my 70-200 F/2.8 and trusty old D7000.

Roseboom

Nothing increases motivation for photography like a beautiful October day. I usually find foliage reports pretty unreliable and that might have a lot to do with my expectations as opposed to those reporting. That being said, I checked out the I Love NY website's foliage reports and saw that the Otsego County area was near peak. 

I drove out to Cooperstown via Route 10 to 165/166 and checked out a scene I had photographed in the past. I drove by the scene you see here on the way out and thought to myself that if the location I had in mind didn't pan out I'd come back to this one. Well, the other scene didn't offer me the color I was hoping for so I came back to this one as the sun was setting. 

If you have seen any of my photos, you know that I generally gravitate towards farms and old farm buildings. I think this image would look much better without the house and willow trees in it but seeing as though this is someone's home I don't feel quite right just erasing it from the scene. 

Hard to believe it has been almost a year since I posted here. As has been the theme in the past, other pursuits have gotten in the way of photography. It's never been far from my mind however and I've wanted to get out and shoot something for quite a while. This was taken in a familiar location in West Charlton, NY.