Autumnal Equinox – An Image to Brighten Your Day

By Lane Erickson

“Wherever there is light, one can photograph.” – Alfred Stieglitz

Welcome to the first day of fall 2019. Today, September 23, 2019, is the Autumnal Equinox where (depending on where you live) there is an equal amount of daylight and darkness. Tomorrow, the darkness will start being longer than the daylight, until we come to the Spring Equinox on March 19, 2020. 

Personally, I greet Autumn with mixed emotions. It felt like last winter was exceptionally long, and I’m not necessarily looking forward to another winter. 

In an effort to cling to the last days of summer, I share with you this image that I recently created while on a weekend getaway with my wife. 

I created this image on what had been a fantastic day. My wife and I got up early and drove through Yellowstone National Park, where we had a spectacular sunrise. We then drove through Teton National Park. Even though the crowds were unusually large for this time of year, I was still able to find some fantastic images to create that will be feeding my stock and other submissions for some time. It really was a fun day.

We had just left Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and were driving down the Idaho side of the Jackson Pass. The late-afternoon sunlight was backlighting a bunch of trees so I quickly found a spot to pull over to capture some photographs.

For technical information, I used my Fujifilm, X-T1 camera and the amazingly versatile XF 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 LM OIS WR zoom lens.  I created this image handheld because the bright light, and the optical image stabilization (OIS) on the lens allowed me to use a faster shutter speed. My exposure was ISO 200; 1/220 at f/5.6. I was zoomed to about 150mm on the lens and I used aperture priority with an exposure compensation setting of – ⅔. 

Despite not being the best composition I could have chosen, I still really like this image. The light and color of the closest trees invokes the warmth of summer while the hazy cooler-colored, blue trees in the background seem to hint at the change in the seasons that’s about to happen. 

Really, this image captures the feelings I have today. Sort of a reluctant goodbye to a great summer. I hope you enjoy the image.  

Thanks for viewing my post, and please leave your comments. I welcome your thoughts, suggestions and even your critiques.