Vermont Fall Foliage - 2025 - Part 5 - Odds and Ends

By the time I post next, we will have sailed by Christmas, and will be finishing out 2025, so I wanted to make sure I wished all who read here a Merry Christmas, and also happy holidays in case observe other, or additional holidays during this time of the year!

Daybreak - Cabot Plains Road - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

ON TUESDAY we were at A.M. Foster Bridge in Cabot early for our combined moonset - sunrise shoot. After our moonset shots, while we were waiting for the light on the bridge, I "saw" and recorded this shot above, which really isn't about the bridge, but was part of the "feel" we had that morning as twilight turned to sunrise. Again, watging for the light, we turned across the road to the little cemetery across from the Bridge/field. I caught this silhouette of Rich shooting. If you are interested, his image is on his site, here. It's definitely worth the trip over.

Sunrise on the Cabot Plains Cemetery - Cabot Plains Road - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

AFTERWARD, we headed out to do some recon. Rich knew of a nice little restaurant in Hardwick, and we made breakfast our first mission. We were already into the "hot" light of another pretty much clear blue sky day, and we didn't have any optimism for any more shooting opportunities until well into the afternoon. But we did want to see what things were looking like in the area. So we drove over toward Stowe, and down to Waterbury Center. I wanted to show Rich the red barn Carol found for us back in 2021. It looked pretty much the same, but of course the lighting was horrible, as it was at the Stowe Land Trust Barn (Grandview Farm). Heading back north, we drove back up to Newport and Troy and were heartened to see the color doggedly holding on in that area. We decided to head back to Rich's house for a break and make a plan for shooting later. On our way back to Sutton, we took Burton Hill Road from Irasburg - the site of my probably favorite Vermont Farm shot. On that road, just up the hill from the farm (which we again didn't even try to shoot due to awful light), we hit a still well-leafed foliage canopy. At first we weren't thinking much about it because we had concluded shooting was done until later in the day. But something compelled me to ask Rich to turn around. We stopped back up the road. The canopy created enough filtered light to make a viable shot. And, because it was late in the season, the leaf drop along the roadsides added to the shot. It may be the best of these "canopy" shots (which always seem to stymie me compositionally) that I have made.

Burton Hill Road - Barton, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THE FORECAST for the next day had been rain. The only day of my entire trip where any rainfall was predicted. It turns out that things developed earlier than originally predicted and our afternoon deteriorated into very windy and heavy rain showers. We were o.k. with that because it was predicted to carry over into the early morning, and the clear. We were hoping for some more interesting skies.

Peacham, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

WE WOKE UP to cooler, but still cloudy conditions, with a continued forecast of clearing throughout the morning. It seemed like the perfect day to head back to Richford and the Fleury Farm. And it turned out to be just that. We got the skies Rich had hoped for, and a different "spin" on that farm scene, as I showed in a prior post covering the farmstead. Afterward, we decided to take a run down U.S. 5, along the Connecticut River Valley. One phenomena we had noticed during the week was that all the best color seemed to be on the western slopes of the mountain ranges. Much of the eastern sides were well past peak, often dull and colorless. What we found along the valley fit that mold. To the west and where we had a view of the river, we could see some nice color over in New Hampshire. But only a very short distance west along the highway and points west of that, an awful lot of "past peak" foliage (or lack of foliage). We went down as far as Thetford, and then headed west over to Tunbridge. Rich lived in Tunbridge for a few years, and there were 2 barns I wanted to see (and someday photograph). This year wasn't the year. No foliage, and mostly cloudy but bright overcast conditions. But the barns are "on my list." We drove back up some back roads eventually reaching Forest Highway 232 up through the Groton State Forest. Again, foliage was well beyond its most photogenic; and no doubt the previous day's high winds and rain took a lot of it down. We never took a camera out of the car on that drive.

Peacham, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

OUR PLAN for that night was our final "moon" gambit in Peacham. So, after a break at Rich's house, we headed to Peacham Village (about 40 minutes away). I covered the moonrise shooting in the prior post: "Moonrise, Moonset," so won't duplicate it here. But I did foreshadow a couple other images in the first blog post, noting that I thought I had "been there - done that" with the iconic church and barn scene in Peacham. We were going there - in my mind - primarily for the moonrise. But as we stood there, "things" developed. First, I saw the cattle grazing directly next to the barn. And I had my "big" 400mm mounted (an option I hadn't had on any of my numerous other visits). So I pulled it in tight and (this is for you Janice - you know who you are 😍) I took my own oft-given advice: "get closer." I think the first image above is the only time I have made such an "intimate" view shot of the scene. I like it. But the real "winner" here comes as a surprise. There is a old saying: "F8 and be there" (though my conscience - yeah right 😏 - compels me to admit this was actually f11). We weren't expecting those dramatic clouds and sunlight (in fact we were hoping for clear conditions, so as to see the moon clearly). But when that light hit the church, I was already set up to shoot it and that whole be there and be ready thing came home to roost. I do believe this has jumped above every other image I have made here over the years to become my favorite Peacham shot!

There is a old saying: "F8 and be there" . . . we weren't expecting those dramatic clouds and sunlight . . . But when that light hit the church . . . that whole be there and be ready thing came home to roost

THERE WERE some other shots and other spots. It is all fun and Vermont is a very photogenic place - particularly in the fall. I think, though, that in this series of 5 posts, I was able to marshall the essence of (and mostly the best of) my 2025 Vermont Fall Foliage trip. So here is a final 2025 shoutout to my great Vermont friends, and particularly to my good friend, photographic inspiration and confidant, Rich Ennis. Already looking forward to the next time we meet (wherever that might be) - and my next trip to Vermont! 

Vermont Fall Foliage - Part 4 - "Moonrise; Moonset"

MOON SHOTS are a somewhat new addition to my portfolio. But sun and moon so often play a preeminent role in the landscape photographers' palette. Whenever I think of the topic, an earwig comes to mind: "Sunrise; sunset" the duet sung by Tevye and Golde in Fiddler on The Roof, whic motivated my post title here.😄 I have shot the moon before. I even have a really nice moonset image I made a few years back on Pete's Lake in The Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan's U.P. The inclusion of the moon in that shot was a lucky coincidence. We were up there for fall foliage photography and were set up on a pier on "Pete's Lake," in the national forest. I was working a shot of fall foliage reflecting in the lake, rather brightly lit by that very moon. As such the moon itself rendered as a mostly detail-less blown out shot. Effective, nontheless in my view. But that was happenstance. We had arrived in the pre-dawn twilight to shoot a sunrise. I had never really planned to shoot moon shots, and at the time really had no idea of the position of the moon or its phase.

Turtlehead Pond - Groton State Forest - Marshfield, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2021 - All Rights Reserved

RICH, ON the other hand, had given it some thought. Sunrise and sunset almost always play a pivotal role in planning a shoot. But with Rich's planning, we purposefully set out to make some moonrise and moonset shots. I didn't really know much about it. There are a number of cell phone apps out there that will give you moonrise and moonset times and directions. There are a couple apps out there which can really help a photographer to plan shots like this. Photopills which, I am told, is a very good and effective tool, was originally available only for Apple (IOS) users, but later released its android version in 2017. We also have TPE (The Photographers' Ephemeris), an app which gives moon and sun rise and set calculations and a map, calibrated by time of the year. Its biggest plus for me is that it is very user-friendly and easy to learn. On this trip, we discovered from a fellow photographer, a new and really cool app: Planit Pro which does all of the above as well as creating a simulation showing the exact position of the moon and nearby features (like mountains, buildings, etc.). I haven't used it yet, but I downloaded it and I am sure I will. Photopills and particularly Planit Pro have rather steep learning curves. I have been watching a YouTub on Planit Pro, after being frustrated by what should be intuitive and easy tasks. It is deep, but I think once you get through the user interface, it may be the most comprehensive and useful of them all. Each of these tools has a cost, but given their utility, it is relatively nominal (Planit Pro, for example, charged me a one-time $10 fee (there is an additional $5 annual fee for its 3-D add-on, which to this point, I haven't felt the need for). Photopills is an $11 one-time charge. TPE has a one-time $10.00 charge for android and IOS apps. Its wegb-based product is free. For planning, I really like the web-based version.

Moonrise - Turtlehead Pond - Groton State Forest - Marshfield, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

OUR FIRST planned shoot was over Turtlehead Pond, in Marshfield, in the Groton State Forest. Turtlehead is a very rustic pond, which might be kayakable, but is not really a recreational pond. There are hiking trails around it. But its real shining moment comes when conditions right during fall foliage seasons for photography. Especially if there is some fog. It creates a spectacular canvas for a photographer, with a low mountain backdrop and a flatwater pond full of reflection opportunities. Carol Smith introduced me to it. If you drove back there during mid-day you would be forgiven if you dismissed it. But if you are there for a sunrise, replete with fog, you almost want to actively applaud. It is that photogenic. The first photo above illustrates the potential, even though it has little to do with a moon rise or set. We were also hoping for relatively clear conditions at the point where we would have the moon in our composition. The clear challenge was preserving enough light to position the moon higher in the sky. We lost that battle as we descended into full darkness. Getting the exposure that we did involved dialing our ISO way up. Some pixel-peeping will show a significant amount of noise in these images. I did use noise reduction in all of the moonrise images in post processing.

Moonrise - Turtlehead Pond - Groton State Forest - Marshfield, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

OUR PLANNING could have been better, but the moon thing was only on the back burner, and we weren't really focused on it. Too bad. Had we been more focused, we would have realized that just 2-3 days before, the moonrise was only minutes behind the sunset (and, conversely, the moonset only minutes before the sunrise). I have recently read that when they are so close together and you are very close to a full moon, the contrast between moonlit and sunlit items are at a low point, making exposure much less a challenge. In just the couple days we were late, that time difference had increased to about 30-60 minutes. What that meant was that it would be nearly impossible to get decent exposure of the dark areas and the brightly lit moon in a single exposure.

Moonrise - Turtlehead Pond - Groton State Forest - Marshfield, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THE OTHER challenge is the postition of the moon. Rich's app told him it should rise behind the background mountain. But beyond that, precision was lacking. And, we knew it would move laterally a small amount as it rose. I was surprised though, that it did not move as much as I thought it would. I saw more movement a day later when we tried the same excercise at Peacham. More on that below. On the above image, given the challenge of thickening clouds and the position of the moon, I tried to focus more on the reflection of the moon. This is all stuff I hadn't previously given much thought to. I can readily see the value of pre-planning these shots using the phone apps as tools. Either way, I hope to have another chance at this one some day.

Moonset over A.M. Foster Bridge - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

KNOWING WE were working against the clock now (each day the separation between sun and moon times was growing longer), we decided we should try our luck at a moonset image the very next morning. We had agreed that the A.M. Foster Bridge could make a good moonset shot, if we could get the moon reasonably near the bridge before the sun came up and things got too bright. And, we could kill two birds, here, by waiting just a few minutes for the sunrise. It is a front lit sunrise shot, so mainly looking for warm light and tones on the bridge. It was a pretty successful morning overall.

Moonset over A.M. Foster Bridge - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

ARRIVING ON Cabot Plains Road, we scouted our scene, and then stood and waited for the sun to "drop" low enough to fit into our frames and compositional objectives. As we did that, we could see some substantial low-hanging cloud cover in the twilight. As things brightened, exposure would again become a challenge at the same time. I decided to use the cloud cover to partially obscure the moon. I "bet" that there would be an opening below the first layer of clouds, and hoped that it would be clear enough for the moon to show through. It did, but there is a certain "Where's Waldo" quality to my shots here. The moon is so small that it doesn't play the part I would have liked it to. Rich did a much better job. Using his longest lens to compress the perspective, his shot rendered the moon larger in the image and things closer. It required a crop of the barn, but it worked well. I need more practice and more pre-planning and thought. On my next outing, I will expiriment with a much longer lens and think about giving the moon a more prominent role in the composition.

Sunrise - A.M. Foster Bridge - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

I KNOW that my next attempt at a "moon landing" will be different. Certainly better planned. But equally importantly, some thought about the role I want the moon to play in the image. So far, these shots have made the moon part of the image. Emphasizing it, as Rich did in his image linked above, means making the moon bigger in the overall image. I didn't do that here. What primarily draws the eye, though, is probably really the fact that in all of them, the moon is the brightest part of the image. It harkens back to my comment  a couple blogs ago that there were "two" images in my scenic - a "landscape/context" image and a more intimate, close-in image. Here, I could choose to make the images more about the moon, but it would mean I would have to think about framing and context more carefully. The end result of my shot of the church steeple in Peacham, below, is my best illustration of what I mean. More in a bit.

Sunrise - A.M. Foster Bridge - Cabot, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

WE KNEW that we would be seeing the warm a.m. sun lighting the A.M. Foster Bridge (see what I did there? 😆) in just minutes after we lost the moon behind the clouds and ultimately the mountains. That was our "two-fer" that morning. Having already made sunset shots, and daytime shots here a few times, I spent my waiting time looking for a compostion that would give me an opportunity to play around with my new camera's "image stacking" feature (those familiar with the concept and the camera know it doesn't really "stack" them at all, but it does have a really smart algorithm for "bracketing" them). I have a separate blog post in the planning stages that will address this whole currently "hot" topic. For now, my conclusion is that its utility is much less broad than many commentors and posters would lead us to believe. There are a few things that make "stacking" a challenge. Some of them (particularly wind) were present here. While the two shots here seem repetitive, I added both to show how the subtle changes in the image and lighting affect the image as the sun comes up (notably in the sky and the foreground).

Moonrise - Peacham, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THE FOLLOWING evening, we headed to my own little piece of Vermont "Heaven:" Peacham. We thought the church steeple would make a good "foil" for the moon during its rise. My first thought was to try to frame the moon with the iconic scene in the photo. That probably would have been possible just a few days before. But Rich pointed out to me that at that time, the setting of the sun and the rise of the moon would have been mere minutes apart. In just 2-3 days, that gap widened to well over an hour. Wow! Lots for me to learn and ingest here. That little detail will be in my mind on my next landscape outinhg (or conditions permitting, citi-scape). One of the things I have learned is that you need to have a good shooting position. The slope of the field in Peacham creates an ideal shooting stage for the photographer. Additionally, I really needed to move my camera position a couple times to get the moon where I wanted it. I never really did. I had to be satisfied with "this is as close as I am going to get this trip." Making minute movements of the tripod in tall grass in the pitch dark, while trying to maintain focus at 400mm? A real challenge.

Peacham, Vermont Moonrise
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

AS WELL, we were, unfortunately, facing the exact same issues we faced just a couple evenings earlier at Turtlehead Pond. By the time the moon appeared to us it was going to be essentially dark in the rest of the photo. This meant the was really no way we were going to get any detail in the moon. As you can see in the first image, it is really just a white, mostly blown out disk. This time though, I had my new long lens mounted and was ready to try to make a bigger moon. Later in the evening, I put the 2x on and did my best to shoot and properly expose that moon, which I would use for the a composite above first getting the moon placed where I wanted it and then replacing the blown out white disc with my reasonably well-exposed moon shot.

Vermont Fall Foliage - 2025 - Part 3 - The Search Continues

Fleury Maple Farm - Richford, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THE OTHER significant "agenda" shot for me was the Fleury Maple Farm, in Richford. Over the past 2 years, I have seen shots of this picturesque farmstead and wondered where it was (and why I had never seen - or shot - it before). It is not in the PDF, because neither of us had photographed it. Rich had a pretty good idea where it was, and racing (we thought) against dwindling colors, we made it our morning destination Sunday Morning. As it turned out, we needn't have worried, as the color "hung in" in this location for several more days.

Fleury Maple Farm - Richford, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025

BEING A somewhat unusual year, we searched for two things: good color and certain "agenda list" scenes. Whenever possible, we hoped the two would combine for great photographs. The Fleury Maple Farm was on my personal agenda and - happily - did just that. Sunday morning dawned with nearly crystal blue (and perhaps unfortunately, cloudless) skies. I was pleased with our take on Sunday morning, particularly with the glow behind the distant mountain range. Rich, though, wished for something more in the skies. We agreed that time and conditions permitting, we would re-visit this scene before the week was out. 

Fleury Maple Farm - Richford, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

WE DID, getting back there 3 days later, on a day that was predicted to be partly rainy, but clearing later. We headed out that morning in clouds and drizzle, hoping maybe things would open up and present the Fleury scene with more dramatic skies. Again, I wasn't disappointed. Some blue sky eventually appeared just above the clouds for the more intimate shot above, of the barns. Below, the clouds were persistent, but with enough variety to provide interest. I thought about the scene below as a candidate for B&W. But when I got home and processed it, I thought my B&W version was "just o.k." I wanted some "pop" in the image and I think my semi-"colorized" version below does that, revealing just some hints of the blue sky to come, while adding visual weight to the red barn and yellow flowers. Opinions vary on these image experiments, but I like it.

Fleury Maple Farm - Richford, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

ONE OF the surprising things to us was how the color maintained in that part of the state. Generally thought to be one of the first areas to succumb to leaf drop because of its well northern proximity, we marveled that the best color we saw all week was up along the Vermont - Canada border! I got one of my favored "up close" shots and though I like the color, shape and texture, I really think this one favors including the distant mountain range in the background. What I missed was moving even further back than we did. I saw that image days later, by another prolific Vermont photographer, and asked myself why we didn't move further up the road and look at the scene. Guess I will just have to go back. 😃

Fleury Maple Farm - Richford, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

I HAVE to say I don't know how we missed this one, but it ranks up there with the 2 or 3 best farm scenes in Vermont that I have photographed. It has a couple things going for it. First, it is on a back road that doesn't appear heavily traveled. Second, it is tucked way up in the Northwest corner of the NEK (maybe not even technically in the NEK), and therefore, off the beaten path, which makes it - I hope - more likely to be admired from afar than overrun with tourists.

Farm on Irish Settlement Road - Underhill, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THAT AFTERNOON, we had planned to meet up with a group of friends (not coincidentally, Carol, Margy Meath, and Betsy McDonough Brown; co-admins on our Facebook Group: Vermont Fall Foliage Fanatics), to shoot some farms in the area between Cambridge and Underhill known as "Pleasant Valley."

Farm on Irish Settlement Road - Underhill, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

BETSY, A native Vermonter from the nearby Burlington Area, showed us another farm, just off the Pleasant Valley Road, on Irish Settlement Road. My first impression was that it was a kind of one-dimensional scene, but our first view of it was during the mid-afternoon and the light was still pretty harsh, which I am sure affected my viewpoint. Rich and I returned later that afternoon as the light just began to come down and shot it. As we "worked" it I found that there were actually a couple different angles from which to shoot. The farmstead is right along the Irish Settlement Roadside. Across the road is a quite steep bank, and by scrambling up that bank, you get a nicer perspective of the trees and foliage in the background, and in the distance, Mt. Mansfield comes more fully into view. We had noted during our week that the western slopes were holding there foliage and color better, and this one faces east. This was some of the best foliage we saw all week long.

Somewhere near Montgomery Center on SR 118 - Montgomery, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

THE FOLLOWING morning, we were out again early, headed back to Montgomery, to shoot the farm we had scouted up the mountain the day before, on Black Falls Road, which starts near the foot of the Fuller Covered Bridge in the Village of Montgomery. As we approached Montgomery Center, just south of this, I spotted a farm road with a green tractor and a red and yellow implement out in the field behind it, waiting, no doubt, as its owner was, for daylight to begin the work day. The eastern slope, surprisingly, was still showing decent foliage coverage and color. What had originally drawn me was the curving drive out to the field. Ultimately though, it is the contrast of the light on the field that I think makes the image interesting.

Barn - Black Falls Road - Montgomery, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

WE MADE our way on to Black Falls Road and up to the spot we had identified the day before as the most likely best vantage point to shoot the red barn from. While not the most exciting farmstead shot I have made over the years, the elements came together to frame it between some tall trees in the foreground and the color in the background was decent. All in all, we found some nice farmstead scenes this year.

West Hill Brook - Montgomery Center, Vermont
Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved

WHILE IN Montgomery, we returned to The Creamery Bridge to shoot the small stream - West Hill Brook - beneath it. I had been attracted to a colorful, reflective pool the day before when we were there, but it was too late, and the light just too harsh and bright. We spent the balance of the day doing some scouting for other possible shooting locations.