Fall in Oklahoma

November 11, 2013

When thinking of Oklahoma in terms of physical landscape, many people view it as flat pastures and grassland...the southern plains...rolling hills at best. Our state's highest point is a stone's throw from Colorado and a drive across Western Oklahoma will put anyone to sleep. However, one of my favorite landscapes is that of the Ouachita Mountains in Southeast Oklahoma.

Driving down the beautiful Talimena National Scenic Byway, it's easy to think you've traveled right into another state. I've driven it numerous times, but never have I seen it as colorful and inviting as this past weekend. I was keeping track of the fall foliage report on Oklahoma's tourism site, TravelOK.com, and discovered this past weekend was when the color would be peaking. So, I loaded up my Nikon D3200--with no special lenses or equipment--and off we went.

During the 3-hour drive there, I studied ways to get the most out of my camera (it's considered a good DSLR for beginning, unexperienced "photographers"). I've always been nervous about using manual mode, but now that I have, I'm not sure I'll ever go back to automatic. I also learned how to decrease the strength of the flash, which came in really handy as the sunset neared.

The forecast called for a bright, sunny day, and--silly me--I thought this would be a good thing. The further east we drove, the cloudier it became, then...it began to rain. As the rain fell, so did my spirits and I just knew we had wasted a ton of gas for nothing. Well, during my camera research, I discovered that a gray, overcast sky is a PERFECT contrast to the reds, golds and oranges of the season. "Okay," I thought. "This might not be so bad after all." Not only that, but the saturated look after a rain is EVEN BETTER for photography, and if the sun peeks out to illuminate it, you've struck gold. I wasn't counting on the sun to make an appearance, so I was prepared to work with what I was given.

Our last visit to Talimena was our April hike and we ended up visiting some of the same places. Here are some of the photos of the brilliant fall foliage (Keep in mind I'm just using the kit lens...nothing special like a telephoto or wide angle):

A wide angle lens here would've been amazing.

This bright gold tree was in the same place we stopped to eat lunch during our spring hike.

This photo may be the one I'm most proud of. It took several shots to get the colors of the trees in the background to stand out against the leaves in the left foreground. If I used the flash at full strength, the leaves in the front would be illuminated, but the trees in the back would be dark. If I focused on the trees and didn't use flash, the leaves would be dark. Then, it wanted to blur the trees if I focused on the leaves, so I had to set the aperture so everything would be in focus. I can't remember the exact setting my flash was, but it was low strength, which allowed me to light the foreground without darkening the background.