2011, Day 311 - Eye of fire

This morning I went to Powell Butte with my friend Julie.  We both just needed to get out and take some photos, we hadn't had a chance to shoot together for months even though we have visited a number times since.  Last night we were wracking our brains to think of a place to explore and settled on Powell Butte.  I have been there a few time before but only during the middle of winter and it is a good meeting point being between our respective homes.

Powell Butte is a huge park, some six hundred acres, with open grassy meadows, dense evergreen woods lush with ferns and stands of various deciduous trees scattered throughout.  We opted to take the orchard trail because it was a cloudy morning and we hoped that it would be warmer than under the canopy of the woods.  As we passed the old orchard along an exposed ridge and mounted a raise we could see a small grove of trees in the middle of an open field ripe with autumn color.  A short hike took us into the copse just as the sun broke through the clouds and the photograph below is what the boughs looked like as we craned our heads upward.  I can still feel the brisk fall air, smell the musk of decomposing leaves and damp earth, hear the rustle of the leaves as the winds gathered a little strength only to die away moments later.

It was the kind of morning that speaks to all of autumn's best qualities.  Thank you Oregon for your splendor and thank you Julie for the company and the steaming bowl of pho afterwards :)

Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 16-35/f2.8L Mark II
16mm, f11, 1/50 sec @ 200 ISO