. . . love the one you’re with.
– Stephen Stills
Are we being exhorted to cheat on an absent partner or to appreciate what’s in front of us? Opinions vary, just as people do. And as leaves do, for that matter.
For the last 18 years in Ottawa, I waited for the fall colours with great anticipation — browns and earth tones, yellows and golds, oranges and bronzes, reds and purples — but especially the last two. As my circumstances permitted, I observed them in passing while driving around town, planned photo shoots at city parks, made day trips to local viewpoints, and inveigled someone to drive me along backroads in maple country. Even in below-average years with faded colours on stressed-by-drought trees, it was glorious. It wasn’t just a tree here and there: whole valleys, whole hillsides were lit up.
For the last six weeks in Calgary, I have watched the leaves turn, well, mostly yellow. Here and there I’ve seen a front-yard tree where yellow shades into gold . . .
Ash tree – maybe a Patmore
. . . or orange shades into red . . .
Mountain Ash
Ohio Buckeye
. . . but they’re isolated cases: brought-from-away specimen trees. In terms of what comes naturally, as it were — from the native trees growing where they can eke out enough water in a small depression on an otherwise-grassy hill, to the trees filling-in the river valley and blanketing the far bank — the overwhelming colour in the landscape is yellow.
Yellow as far as the eye can see . . .
Do I miss the oranges-and-bronzes, the reds-and-purples? Sure I do. But I don’t feel that I’m cheating on them by appreciating what’s in front of me.
Beautiful photo portrait of your new home. Different landscape colour today – white.
Judith – 🙂 Yes, too true. I’ll have to figure out a way to enjoy photographing snow: we get so much of it for so much of the year!
I tend to associate “western” with “golden,” thinking particularly of aspens. You have found a dragon’s hoard of gold. But you didn’t mention MOUNTAINS. I had forgotten that you are in the foothills of the Rockies. What bliss! The amber waves of grain or maybe just dried grasses run their yellow carpet smack dab into unavoidable magnificence.
Laurna – Hahaha. Oh, yeah, the mountains. I found the perfect building site with an unobstructed view of them – sadly, it’s in the middle of a busy (busy) road. I suppose the City traffic engineers would take exception. They’ll have to wait for next summer.
Nice set of images to start your new Calgary catalog!
And you brought along your favourite reflector too!!
Thanks, Jim – We did bring our reflector, but it’s a challenge to keep it in tip-top reflecting condition. We have lots of fine, fine dust.
Autumn is my favourite season.
Beautiful colours.
Tom
Tom – Mine too! And the baseball is a bonus.
The joys of coming home. In the 1970s, when I ws playing media celebrity, I came out to B.C. for some promotion meetings. As if for the first time, I saw the incredibly rich range of yellows in the aspens, the poplars, and yes, in the larches — a coniferous tree that sheds its needles in the fall just like a deciduous tree. I had lived with those same colours for about 30 years, before I went to Toronto and saw the reds of the maples. It took a trip back home to see what I had previously overlooked.
Jim T – 🙂 Yes, there’s something to that. I always figured Central Canada had better fall colours – and they are magnificent. But so, too, are the more-restricted colours here.