The "Best" Year

In October 1997, I made my first trip up to the northwestern Upper Peninsula in Michigan. Color was sparse, and "developing," and in terms of fall foliage, I was disappointed. Sometimes you make proverbial lemonade, though. As I set up this shot on a very windy afternoon, I couldn't help but wonder what it might look like with a "wash" of fall color throughout, rather than the few bright spots in a mostly green scene. This shot, however, remains one of my best selling - and personal favorite - images.
Copyright Andy Richards 1997 - All Rights Reserved

IN OCTOBER I spent 10 days in Vermont, which is one of the most colorful and photogenic locations in the U.S. for fall foliage photography. And it is probably easily the most popular venue for foliage viewing and photography. For over 15 years, I have made the trip roughly bi-annually and have photographed much of the state; covering perhaps 3/4 of it, geographically. I have kept notes, and have written a PDF "Guide" to Photographing Vermont's Fall Foliage, which you can access here (there is no cost, but I ask that you use it responsibly). In other years, I have spent a lot of time in Michigan's relatively little-known "Upper Peninsula" (which is also the subject of a PDF Guide found here), an area roughly the same size as the entire state of Vermont, which I will argue rivals (and in some ways surpasses) New England for its colorful fall foliage and scenic settings. I have also photographed in West Virginia and New Mexico during their foliage seasons. Very different, but also very photogenic under the right conditions. A good friend lives in Utah, and her images of the foliage around her is spectacular. One year, I spent a week in Acadia National Park in October. We caught the very late season and could see so much potential for more spectacular color had we arrived maybe just a week earlier. And in 2023, we were in Tenessee in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. So as the guy in the Farmers Insurance commercial might say: "I've been a few places; I've seen a few places."😎

The thread I am thinking about today is stimulated by the comment I often read in these discussions about the "kind of year" being experienced

I ACTIVELY follow (and even moderate one) several Facebook Pages dedicated to New England and Vermont scenic photography, and try to keep up with current conditions. Our page is perhaps the only one that is specifically focused on fall foliage and during the season restricted to current images only, in hopes of providing seekers "real time" data for their travels.

Is there a best year, time, or condition? What are our criteria for a "good" year, a "bad" year, or a "marginal" year?

IN ALL of the above, there are a few common threads. The thread I am thinking about today is stimulated by the comment I often read in these discussions about the "kind of year" being experiened. In Vermont, during what we have identified to be the "normal" foliage periods, I have seen years and locations with conditions from everything solid green, to mostly "sticks." That varies, of course, depending on location. But as a matter of timing, the quality of the foliage is what we are really addressing. I was fortunate (in my own limited experience) in New Mexico, to see what I thought was some pretty robust "western style" foliage. We got to West Virginia late in the season and though it was magnificent, we could see the potential for hitting it earlier. The Michigan U.P. is, again, largely dependent upon location, largely because of its unique geographic setting, mostly surrounded by the Great Lakes. I had the wonderful experience one year of being in the same location for a week and watching the progression go from nice, early color to what might be identified as "peak," day by day. An experience which - unless you live on location - you are unlikely to experience very often. An experience I won't forget.

as I thought back to all my trips to all of these places (though I may have characterized as such at the time), none of them was a complete bust. Not One!

WE OFTEN read comments like, "In spite of it not being the best year . . ," or "color was not (or was) the best I have seen . . ." and the like. A recent comment on one of my posts here kind of rang a bell, with me (silently) asking the question: Is there a best year, time or condition? What are our criteria for a "good" year, a "bad" year, or a "marginal" year? And as I thought back to all my trips to all of these places (though I may have characterized as such at the time), none of them was a complete bust. Not One!

I have sometimes found that when that "grand landscape" just isn't going to happen, getting a more intimate view of your surroundings can be fruitful. We were waiting for fog to lift, to see if there would be colorful foliage in the background of our planned shot of the Village of Stowe, Vermont, but it wasn't being particularly cooperative. I wondered if it would clear at all that morning, and while waiting, I started playing with some closeup compositions. These were the only bright red maple leaves we had seen so far that week. You might recognize it as the leaf in front the bridge (photo below) in my LightCentricPhotography logo.
Copyright Andy Richards 2005 - All Rights Reserved

INTERESTING. TO me at least. A couple of my experiences involved conditions that were just not what I had hoped for (rainout, lack of color change, late to the party, etc.). But the thing is, I have always found images. And I think that may illustrate another kind of truism about fall foliage photography. It is often really more about particular location than the overall "year." I have always brought back a few "keepers." No matter the condition. No matter the year. It reminds me of a quote by the late Bryan Peterson, one of my primary inspirations and teachers (albeit from afar): "There is alway an image there; it is up to the photographer to find it."

This image is pretty much representative of the color we found in the areas of Vermont where I had traveled growing up. While we did ultimately find some "better" color in some areas we explored, I will always remember 2005 as the year the color never happened in Vermont.  Home in my "digital darkroom," I made a composite of this image and a solitary red maple leaf, that would ultimately become my LightCentricPhotography logo.
Copyright Andy Richards 2005 - All Rights Reserved

ARE THERE "good years?" Or bad years?" Or really, anything in between? It is really a kind of continuum in which I have always found something to shoot. So for me, the answer is that there really aren't any "best" or "worst" years. There are only "years." Thoughts?

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.