Stoney Brook Wildlife Sanctuary

A few weeks ago we had a camera club road trip to the Stoney Brook Wildlife Sanctuary in Norfolk MA. It was a beautiful Fall morning and it was great to be outdoors with friends. Here we are along the boardwalk that winds it's way across the pond:

Here I am doing a selfie reflected in the water with my friend Becky

Peaking through from the trail:

Fall berries and leaves:

Water and leaves rushing through the river:

Reflections and waterfall:

My favorite image of the day:

We worked up a hearty appetite and followed up with a delicious breakfast at James Breakfast and More in Wrentham. The food was amazing. We had such a great morning!

The Quiet Corner of Connecticut

The Northeast corner of CT is a beautiful area that I have wanted to visit and photograph for some time now. On October 22nd............during a 4 day Nor'Easter here in New England..... my friend Diane and I headed to this corner of Connecticut to photograph the beauty.
Our motto is the same as the US Postal Service........"Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will stop us."
We had this day planned for some time, and as the storm moved in, we figured we would have to cancel. But the day before, we looked at the forecast and saw that we may have a window of opportunity so we took the chance and it worked out for us.
We headed down at 5:30 am. The drive was dry, but very dreary and overcast. We arrived to on and off showers, and a few moments of some steady rain....but not a washout!

Scenic beautiful old homes....farms....rolling hills....and beautiful old stone walls are the attractions in this area.

Scenic Rte 169 (One of America's Scenic Byways) was a beautiful road to travel, as well as some of the side roads. This dirt road (Pulpit Rock Road) was an exceptionally beautiful narrow road:

We stopped for lunch at The Vanilla Bean Cafe in Pomfret and it was the perfect place to stop for lunch. If you are ever in this area, I highly recommend it. The food is local farm to table, and the homemade dessert that we shared was delicious.

Don't know why, but I always love the look of boggy areas with dead trees, especially in the Fall.

The heavy rain began just as we started the drive home, and it rained heavily with strong NE winds for the next several days.

Early Snowfall

Woke up this morning to a beautiful heavy dusting of snow. It did not stick around for long, as the temps quickly rose and the snow melted. Here are a few images I took this morning at War Memorial Park in West Bridgewater MA

We are expected to get our first hard freeze tonight here in SE MA. The remaining leaves on the trees will fall soon after. It was a wonderful season this year in New England.

My motto:

"Fall in New England is like Maxwell House Coffee..........it's good 'till the last drop!" 

Abington MA on a November Day

I took a walk around town with my camera one overcast day last week. I always enjoy the colors of late Fall in New England, and even in November there is still some color to be found. They are not the vibrant colors we see in the peak season of Fall, but these colors are the more golden, rusty colors of the beech trees and the other late turning trees. It's just a beautiful time of year around here.

Here is Island Grove in Abington where I tend to spend a lot of time with my camera. This is "our" swan family. The juveniles are just about the same size as the parents, and they are losing a lot of their brown tones in their feathers.

One of the juveniles stretching their wings for me.

Papa swan getting a drink

If you are a long time follower, you will know that I have spent a lot of time photographing in the cemetery here in town......especially when I was posting daily for my 365 day two year project. Well, I recently found out there is a small foot bridge that runs over the stream. It's a beautiful hidden spot and I took this shot standing on the bridge.

It's so pretty there. Another reason why I love shooting in the late Fall is because all of the leaf drop makes such a gorgeous carpet of leaves. 

Can you tell I don't want this season to end? Sigh......

Calais VT and Northfield VT

I'm going to wrap up the remainder of the VT Fall trip images on this post. It was a wonderful Fall and I have some local images I will be sharing over the next few blog posts.

Calais VT is another one of those areas that one could spend a full day photographing. Here are a few of my favorite images from that area:

Northfield Falls and Northfield VT are another area that one could spend and entire day photographing in the Fall:

I hope you have enjoyed taking this Vermont journey with me!

Woodbury VT

One could spend an entire day photographing in this area. There are a number of beautiful ponds within a few miles of each other. Here are just a few of the images taken that morning:

Clarks Pond/Horse Pond VT

Our last full day in Vermont for Fall photography was a very long day. We headed out at 6:15 am, and did not return home until almost 9:00 pm. I knew it was going to be a long day.....but was not expecting it to be this long!!! I have to tell you though, I enjoyed every single minute of that day, and so did my camera club buddies.
Our first stop was to photograph Clarks Pond, along Route 16 in Glover.

From here, we continued along Rte 16 South, and stopped at Horse Pond in Greensboro:

There was lots of morning dew and webs......

"Mountain Dew"

This was all just the first two hours of a 14 hour day. :-) Yeah, we had FUN!

So on Wed afternoon we took a little break and had some down time. It remained cloudy for the remainder of the day but by late day/early evening, it appeared there could be some breaks in the clouds. A few of us went out and we were happy we did.
We arrived to Wheeler Pond in Barton and took a few shots. There was no "good light" and just when we were getting ready to leave, we noticed some light hitting the top of the mountain across the lake. So we waited......and within ten minutes the warm late day light was shining across the whole scene. It was beautiful.

We then called in an order for pizzas at The Parker Pie Co. in West Glover. While waiting the thirty minutes to pick up the order we took a drive around the area and made a few more images.

I love the composition of this shot, but the sky was rather boring so I digitally added a more interesting sky to this image and I love it.

Just one more landscape panning shot. I won't be using this technique often, but for certain shots I personally really like it. I love how this curve in the road shot came out.

I hope you do too!

Jobs Pond and More

We are back to more VT Fall images!!!So, our next stop was to Jobs Pond in Newark VT. The colors were really beautiful, and we were blessed with some morning fog.

Here's some of my camera club buddies making some of their own images of the beautiful scene that was before us.

From here, our next stop was up to Island Pond/Bloomfield area. The skies clouded up so it was best to keep the skies out of our landscapes.

We also practiced some photography techniques on a stand of birch trees that I wanted to photograph.

Here is the result of zooming the lens while pressing the shutter:

And landscape panning:

Here are some cows grazing on a hillside, with their reflections in a small pond.

Hope you have been enjoying all of the Fall images. There's still more to come......