Creekside Chaos

[AlanLichty]

For the last 7 years running I have gone down to Florence on the Oregon coast and made a fall pilgrimage to Sweet Creek at the earliest light to shoot the waterfalls. I decided to pass on that early morning trek this year since I have thousands of images of the falls along that creek but I was driving in that area so I made a quick stop to grab some shots of fall leaves while I was nearby. The lighting conditions in this particular scene caught my eye so stopped to grab a shot. A lot of the big leaf maples were past peak color but still offered up a fall mood to the forest.

C&C always welcome.

 

[Michael13]

A lovely forest setting. Looks like the opening shot from a wilderness documentary!

 

[AlanLichty]

A lovely forest setting. Looks like the opening shot from a wilderness documentary!

Thanks Michael - I love it when just enough leaves have changed and fallen off to give us a good view of the moss with some leftover fall colors in the mix. Timing is everything for these conditions as they don't last long.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Order in chaos - typical PNW forest scene. Nice composition.

 

[AlanLichty]

Order in chaos - typical PNW forest scene. Nice composition.

Thanks Jameel - moss draped maples are one of my favorite subjects in our forests.

 

[JimFox]

It's still a bit mind boggling after all these years of seeing those fall PNW images, that it's actually really fall. The change, at least to an untrained eye is so minimal. It's taken me a while to get on board with these, as my preference is the wild vibrant colors of fall. But this does have it's own charm and subtlety to it.

I like how you framed it, it would work well as the beginning scene from a documentary as Michael suggested.

 

[AlanLichty]

It's still a bit mind boggling after all these years of seeing those fall PNW images, that it's actually really fall. The change, at least to an untrained eye is so minimal. It's taken me a while to get on board with these, as my preference is the wild vibrant colors of fall. But this does have it's own charm and subtlety to it.

I like how you framed it, it would work well as the beginning scene from a documentary as Michael suggested.

Thanks Jim - fall in the PNW is subtle but quite distinct if you have seen the same scenes in mid summer when this spot would not have a view of the creek at all behind the maple leaves. Mid winter is quite stark in comparison. Needless to say this isn't a great place to fly your drone

 

[Peter Michal]

Beautiful image, Alan. The ferns in the foreground and the moss-covered trees give the image the feel of an old-growth forest.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful image, Alan. The ferns in the foreground and the moss-covered trees give the image the feel of an old-growth forest.

Thanks Peter - this place has the vibe of an old growth forest and is a far cry from a tree farm but it isn't a true old growth area by any means. The original Thomas Sweet homestead dating back to the mid 1800's is about a mile and a half downstream from here and that homestead plot as well as everything downstream from there has been continuously inhabited ever since. I don't think the banks of the creek were ever logged as a clear cut but there are plenty of stumps around with visible saw cuts by the original settlers downstream. With a couple of meters of rainfall per year the mosses thrive during the rainy season.