My favorite Cottonwood Tree in all it’s fall glory. Beef Basin Road. Near Newspaper Rock, Utah ©Kit Frost
My studio faces north. I can see the La Plata Mountains, and the Animas Valley. I love the see the approaching, clearing and socked in storms that surround this mountain town. I live and work with the San Juan National Forest and the Weminuche Wilderness in my backyard. As I sit here this morning, I’m anticipating the fall color spectacle with excitement. My best guess is that the end of next week will be a great time to get out and photograph. I’m heading north on this coming Friday and planning to get out and stay out for a few days late next week.
In preparation for fall photography, here are a few things I suggest
- Charge batteries
- Clean lenses
- Upload and empty all CF and SD cards
- Leave the tripod in the car, ready to go
- Pack a bag of layered clothing for the mountains
- Pack raingear for the inevitable storms (oh yeah)
In addition to the gear preparation, I tend to look over fall photos from past years to get inspired. Here are a few, from Colorado, Utah, and New Jersey. I live 3 hours from Moab and Southeast Utah. Some of my favorite trees (Cottonwoods) are along the Newspaper Rock Road between Monticello and Moab.
This Maple and the Oak behind it live at Round Valley Reservoir in New Jersey ©Kit Frost
The images above are examples of using my 75-300 lens to compress space. The backgrounds in both photos are a considerable distance from the trees in the foreground.
An Autumn Drive, October 4, 2010, led to this reflection and views of our local mountains, Centennial, and Hesperus with a fresh dusting of snow. ©Kit Frost
Related articles
- Track Fall Colors in San Juan National Forest (qualityinndurango.com)
- San Juan National Forest Fall Color 9/23/13 (naturalhistorywanderings.com)
Kit Frost 
2 thoughts on “Getting ready for Colorado Fall Peak Colors”