A glimpse of autumn

I like Autumn. Sometimes it is a slow slide into Winter, with Summer hanging onto Autumn’s heels keeping it mild despite the evening frosts. Other times Autumn has barely begun when an impatient Winter sends freezing blasts to rattle the branches and swirl leaf blizzards all around, with snow on the high tops, and sometimes down to lower levels too. Autumn, it would be fair to say has ‘character’ in the north.

So here are few images from a couple of different Autumns, from the mild and inviting, to the harsh and snow-blasted. Some are simple images, other maybe a little more complex, but all are pretty much straight from the camera. There is no Photoshop trickery other than curves and levels, contrast and cropping. The ‘movement’ in images is a result of either keeping the camera stationery and allowing details in the landscape to move – trees in wind, water running, clouds passing or alternatively the camera being moved as the shutter button is pressed, and sometimes a combination of both to see what the result might be and whether it reveals anything more of the complex character of this season. Sometimes this experimentation works, sometimes not, but it’s always good fun to try and all part of the continual learning curve.

Autumn is also the red deer rut, and the tail end of the stag hunting season and the start of the hind season, so I’ve put in some deer pictures. The deep reverberating roar of rutting stags is a very evocative sound in the Highland glens during the autumn, and on a dimming evening as the mist slides in, can be profoundly eerie, and once heard will never be forgotten.