Sugar Maple Foliage Closeup, Fall Colors, Ohio
A secret to making a great fall foliage photographs is to find a scene with foreground-background contrast. You have to convey the feeling of depth in a two dimensional (flat) image, otherwise the power of the moment is lost.
There are a number of ways of accomplishing this. The contrast can be caused by extremes in light, such as sunlit yellow foliage against shaded yellow foliage. In this particular image, the sunlight was blocked by clouds, resulting in a relatively low contrast scene. However, the variety in the colors and tones of the foliage took its place, in a way. the dark green sugar maple foliage that had not turned its colors yet acted as a wonderful canvas on which to make the reds and golds of the foreground foliage pop out. Soft overcast sky can make for wonderfully saturated colors in an instance such as this one.
Photo location: Fort St. Clair Park, Eaton, Ohio.
