Winding Down The Fall Colour Season - By Gord Barker

     So It's early morning on October 15th and I'm up at Penmans Dam here in Paris Ontario. It's been a dull rainy morning so far. Since arriving at the dam, I've spent a good chunk of my time hanging out under the eaves of a signboard kiosk waiting for a series of passing showers to clear. I've made use of the meager shelter it offers many times in the past.

     I don't know why I came up here this morning. I'd already photographed this place twice before in this season alone! The weather didn't look very promising from the outset. I guess I had the faint hope that the photo gods, fickle bastards that they are, would give me a break. 

     They gave me a break! 

     For a brief period of about five minutes,  I got a light blast through the overcast. The colours looked awesome against a stormy sky.  In my opinion, that's some of the best light possible for autumn colour photography. As an added bonus, a train crossed the bridge during that five minute window of opportunity!    I worked fast knowing that the photo gods, after giving you a blast of beautiful light, can just as quickly, take it away again. That's the thing about the photo gods, if they cut you a break, you have to prove yourself worthy of their benevolence. Or, in the words of American photographer Arthur Fellig (aka Weegee), "F8 and be there!" ( If anyone needs an explanation of that quote, leave me a note in the comments.)  Sure enough, almost as quickly as that light appeared, the clouds closed up and it was raining again a few minutes later. Did I mention that the photo gods are a fickle bunch? But I got the shots I wanted. Weegee would have been proud! 

     The Fall colour season has been a pretty good one this year. There were enough cool nights that the trees turned colour consistently. For the past few years, the colours have been a bit splotchy where some trees had dropped all their leaves while others were still green. 

     Besides my usual fall colour photos of Paris, I was lucky enough to get away with a dear friend to spend an awesome morning at Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area. Later that day we also visited Campbellville and St. George, On. It was a glorious day to be out making photos. 

     So as the Autumn colour season winds down, I feel both elated and a little sad. Happy that it was a good season this year, but sad that my favourite time of year is coming to an end. 

    But life goes on. Autumn is traditionally a time of Thanksgiving and I'm thankful that I got to make some good photos. I'm even more thankful that I got to share them with family and friends. Maybe the photo gods aren't such a bad bunch after all!

           ...more later 

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