Fall is one of my favorite times of year. With brilliant shades of reds, yellows and oranges exploding all over the place, there certainly isn't a lack of material for northern nature photographers to work with. Even in a major metropolitan area like New York City, the beauty of autumn is never far away. One year, I set out to Wolfes Pond Park to capture the magnificence of this colorful season. Located in the southern region of Staten Island, Wolfes Pond is one of the city's lesser known and least visited parks. That's very good news if you're trying to capture nature scenes without the presence of buildings or people in the shots.
I found a use for almost all of my lenses on this visit. My 50mm normal lens perfectly framed the horizontal shot of the upright, broken tree stump at the water's edge. I switched to a 28mm wide angle lens for the other horizontal of the tree laying prone in the foreground. The winds were calm, so I was able to obtain strong reflections in the lake. I used my zoom lens for the vertical image, which allowed me to compress the space between the trees and the distant background for a tighter composition. Although fall foliage can be successfully photographed in any lighting condition, these images definitely benefited from the diffused, overcast light. Direct sunlight would have produced a sea harsh shadows and contrast – effectively robbing them of color saturation.
Wolfes Pond Park is one of New York’s best kept secrets. It's also very easy to get to at just a quick hop on the subway, a skip on a ferry and a jump on a bus away. Well, okay...unless you happen to live on Staten Island, it might not be that easy. But, it's certainly worth the trip if you want to capture "real" nature images within city limits.
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F.M. Kearney is a fine
art nature photographer, specializing in unique floral and landscape images. To
see more of his work, please visit www.starlitecollection.com.
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