Later-than-summer

I really like the fall. Taking good pictures is much easier because 1) the leaves are changing color 2) the weather is generally awesome 3) it's cool enough that it actually feels good to be in the sun 4) the sun is coming up later in the morning so my lazy ass can stay in bed longer in the mornings .

Some of these pictures are the product of the later-than-summer sunrises. And some are the product of the earlier-than-summer sunsets which, frankly, I'm not such a big fan of. But I'm definitely a big fan of a climate that has four seasons...and having light drop off as winter approaches is all part of the game. I lived for a year in Fairbanks, AK and at the peak winter we had four hours of dusky light and about 20 hours of dark. And that dusky light was really awesome. Everything looked pretty cool...except for maybe the oil pipeline. I'm one of the crazies that actually rode my bike all winter up there and I can remember riding to work by the moonlight (I had a headlamp on my bike too...but I usually turned that off and rode in the dark [once your eyes adjust to them the stars and moon are surprisingly bright when the ground is snowy] unless there was a car coming and I turned it on so the car would be sure and see me) and then riding back home by moonlight. Another perk of being that far north and having it be so dark is that I saw the northern lights probably half of all nights that were cloudless. [By the way, in case you're wondering, the coldest I temperature I rode in was 40 below, which is cold enough for grease to start freezing.]

So a few of you may have noticed that I had a blog entry up a few days ago and then took it down the next day. I wasn't happy with it. So I nixed it.

This was taken at sunset over the Mississippi River backwaters on Goose Island which is just downstream from Lacrosse, WI. I was here because I was paddling my new solo canoe.

This picture is a product of the later-than-summer sunrises...and the changing color of the leaves.

OK this picture takes a bit of explaining to make sense. Half of the bubble-raft you see (the white part of the picture) is in that water that's moving downstream after it spills over the little watertumble that is between the rocks in the picture. The other half of the bubble-raft is in the eddy behind the mossy rock on the left (in the picture) of the watertumble. The water there is moving upstream and so the bubble-raft is spinning. I used a fairly slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the bubble-raft.

Another product of the later-than-summer sunrises and fall colors.

This was taken in the fairly early morning before the dew had completely dried off of this chicory flower.

This leaf was on one side of a creek and it was in the sunlight (obviously). The other side of the creek was still in shadow which is why the background is so dark.