Twilight and Moonlight Fall Colors-Rookie post

Hi Y'all,
I've been out past my bed time a couple evenings, experimenting with low light Fall Color shots.

Let me know your reactions.

#2

#3

Scott, I like where your headed with these, and it's always amazing to see what the camera sensor is able to pick up with longer exposures that our eye can't detect. The first one has a great vantage point, but I'm guessing you shot it with a polarizer (?) as there is a dark area in the center of the sky. My suggestion on this one would be to maybe expose the foreground even more, and try to get a darker more even tone in the sky, whether blending different exposures, using a GND, or just a different time of night/dusk. The second one seems to have a CW tilt to it as the FG tree and mountain line seem to be slanting downhill. This looks to be cropped already, so hopefully you have the real estate in the original to align the FG Aspen tree trunk with the right edge of the frame and I think this will work better-for me anyway. Also the sky on this one seems a little bright. Finally, the last one looks much better in terms of keeping the sky in balance. I like the silhouette of the trees and how the shape plays with the ridgeline of the mountains behind, but I think there is a little too much negative space for me. If you could provide just a little more detail in the other trees in the shadows it would give this some interesting layers and depth, or you could crop off the bottom third which may make a neat pano as is. Cool subject for a rookie post, sleep is overrated anyway

Great advice from Jared.
Nice compositions and vantage points here, but all three are quite underexposed. I would suggest using the histogram on your camera to check exposure in the field or in your image editor during postprocessing (which is requisite for digital images).
Where were these taken?

*EDIT*
I failed to notice that these were deliberate 'low light' photos as Stan noted.
I have to agree with his point about evening Fall photos.

I like the third one, cause the fg elements are interesting and the moon adds some intrigue---but to be honest, im just not sure shooting fall foliage in the dark is a good idea, i mean, i want to see fall colors lit up--darkness sort of defeats the strength of the subject for me. But maybe if they were brighter (as John suggests) i might see things differently...

Even though the results are marginal, I have to give you a lot of credit for thinking outside of the traditional box.

Welcome to the forum, Scott.

How long after sunset were these taken?
I also find the images too dark, but that may be the feeling you want to convey, so don't mind me if it is.
In your experiments, did you make any longer exposures?

Scott...always nice to see new thoughts and thinking outside of the box....but this one is just not working for me personally. I ahve to agree with Stan. I like the colors of fall and want to see them. Maybe a dark photo with selective highlighting??? not sure, but might work better.

I get what y'all are saying...typically Fall Colors photography aims for the blazing glory. I saw the soft twilight and Luna-light and had to give it a try. Looking at the light on the aspen trunks, I see something that harsh ol' Sol can never do.

The first two are above Brush Creek, and last above Walrod trail, in the Crested Butte area. Twilight pics were maybe 10-20 minutes past sunset.

thanks for the comments!

One of the things you come up against with images that are attempting to provide a different take on such an iconic subject is being able to clearly convey the "different" vision that you have, overcoming the understandable preconceptions about what is expected. Certainly not an easy task, but if the combo of soft light and aspen trunks was your inspiration, perhaps a comp that isolates the trunks and emphasizes the light would be worth attempting on the next go-round.

I think the main trunk in the second images is revealing a bit of what you're speaking to. But in all 3 images, there's a lot of additional content that doesn't come across as strongly as that one trunk.

There are definitely great fall foliage images to be had in low light. One of my best and favorite fall images was taken during dark, stormy conditions that muted the colors. If you can focus the image and viewer on the most compelling parts of the scene, you'll have success. Good luck!