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During our late September holiday, spent exploring Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, my wife Liz and I hiked though a lot of beautiful scenery.
Some of the most memorable views were on the Bierstadt Lake Trail, which passed though groves of aspen trees as it wound down a moraine slope from the lake itself back to the trailhead on the Bear Lake Road.
We'd cheated a bit on this hike, as we'd taken the park bus up to the Bear Lake trailhead and started from there, rather than starting from the Bierstadt trailhead proper, thus saving us a lung busting climb of around 500 feet.
Going down the moraine slope was much easier than going up, as the several panting hikers we met climbing up as we were descending testified!
About halfway down the trail we passed by this particular grove of aspens, which were just starting to change from green to gold, and I was attracted to the contrast between the dazzling white tree trunks and darker green of the leaves and deep blue of the sky.
My first attempt to photograph the scene was a failure, as those very bright tree trunks just burnt out, flashing highlight warnings on my camera's monitor.
In the end it took 1 stop of negative exposure compensation to bring the brightness of the tree trunks within the dynamic range of my camera's sensor, but that wasn't a problem as the reduced exposure only served to improve the contrast between the bright tree trunks and darker surroundings.
Filename - rocky mountains autumn trees 14.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 82mm
Exposure - 1/40 sec @ f11, ISO100
Location - Bierstadt Lake Trail, Colorado, U.S.A.
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Polarising filter used to enhance colours.
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