Capturing Fall Colours

I'm glad you've enjoyed the shots I've posted of fall colours, at least judging by your comments.  Thanks for your encouragement.  It really has been a beautiful fall here, though it's rapidly ending.  But I always find that 'ordinary' photos (shot with my DSLR at the standard wide-angle setting), really don't quite capture the sense of being surrounded by fall colours, nor the bright fluorescent colours themselves, that sense that the atmosphere itself is saturated with colour.  So here are some of the alternative photos I've taken trying to really capture the richness of fall colours in the valley.

This is my favourite old stone schoolhouse, the Sligo School.  I take few pictures of buildings like this, but I think it gives some sense of what the view out their windows must be like.

I've tried a number of places to use my iphone's 'panorama' function, and I do really like the results.  This is the west side of the valley from the ski club north, though it makes the slope seem a bit too distant.

This is from a hike I haven't even told you about yet, but will starting tomorrow.  Cuckoo Valley Overlook is a high point on the Bruce Trail, and this is a 180° view of the colour you see there, one of the best views in the entire valley, after Old Baldy itself.

Here are two attempts to capture the inside of the woods, the top one from our Cuckoo Valley hike, and the bottom one from behind the house across the street.  They're fairly 'short' panorama shots, so they end up not so long and thin, and look more realistic to me, capturing about the width that my eyes see.

Here's another iphone panorama, perhaps my best this year, taken from the cliffs at Old Baldy.  It captures about twice as much as a 'standard' photo, but isn't too long and thin.  It also gives you a sense of the valley itself as you look upvalley to the distant left where a shaft of sunlight penetrated the clouds.  This one was at the peak of our fall colour.

Roads through the woods seem to me another place to capture fall colours.  The above one is one of our favourite drives; the lower one is now a walk, though you could still drive a car through if you wanted.  They do give you the sense of being surrounded by colour.

Still, none of those pictures above quite capture the brilliance or the depth of the colour we get.  This Fragrant Sumach in our meadow comes close.

I don't think I've ever posted a picture of our house, but here it is.  I noticed this shot when I walked over to the neighbours to get shots in their woods.  Maybe it gives you the sense of what we enjoy here in the valley for two weeks.  Funny that perhaps the most beautiful time of the year is also so short - it's short because it's special!