Colorado Fall Color - Sept. 23, 2009

Today is the official start of our fall color week here in Colorado. I'll be ending the week by leading a photo tour around the Crested Butte area. Today, though, I'm camped near Buena Vista and spent the day scouting out good fall color locations in the Cottonwood Canyon area, west of Buena Vista. The conditions were a bit unusual, in that half the aspens hadn't turned yet and the other half were way past prime and many leaves had already fallen. I suspect they've had high winds lately, which will "do a number" on the leaves. Although I took a number of aspen pictures, none really "grabbed" me, so Cottonwood Creek gets the nomination for picture of the day. I used a polarizing filter to eliminate the glare on the water surface and about a 6th of a second shutter speed to turn the water "cottony", which helped depict a degree of motion. Of course, I had to use a tripod to get this shot.