Jeff's Photographic Blog: Powell Butte

Showing posts with label Powell Butte. Show all posts

Thursday, November 10, 2011

2011, Day 314 - Copse

I had another hectic day today, a lot to get accomplished during days that I swear are getting shorter. Although I was born and raised in California I really feel that Oregon is my home. The people are a great mix of laid back and fanatic, the food is great, the cost of living in the city is comparatively affordable and we get real seasons. True, our winters are relatively mild and the rain I think is a bit overstated but we have been blessed with a spectacular autumn.

Fall is such an odd season. The trees turn gold and red but their warmth is betrayed by cool weather. They give such a wonderful celebratory goodbye to the long summer days and usher in winter with the temporary departure of foliage. On those chilly winter days it is nice that the trees have doffed their leaves so that the brief moments of sun we get can actually provide a little warmth as we defiantly insist that the damp weather will not keep us house bound. While it lasts I am going to try to capture as much color as time allows.

Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 16-35/f2.8L Mark II
16mm, f11, 1/125 sec @ 200 ISO

Monday, November 7, 2011

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 :)