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Fall Serenity – fall foliage along a stream in Santa Fe

This is only my second full summer here in Santa Fe, New Mexico and I have recently found a new photo playground – up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

I first scouted the area the other week, then brought our photography workshop students up there for a sunrise shoot. A few days following the photo workshop I returned to spend more time photographing.

This was photographed on my third visit this fall. The more time we spend up there, the more we find these little hidden gems. I was following the stream up the mountain a little ways and found this wonderful spot with a mini waterfall.

I spent about 15 minutes photographing this scene with my Canon 5DmkII camera and 24-70mm f2.8 lens attached to my tripod right along the waters edge. A 1.3s exposure at f22 allowed me to blur the running water and retain focus from the foreground to the background. I spent some time re-arranging the leaves, and adding the red leaves to the upper left corner helped nail down the composition.

Photographing "Fall Serenity"
Photographing “Fall Serenity”

I used Capture One Pro 7 to process and enhance the RAW file, then used Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 to further enhance the color – especially the greens. A quick stop in Photoshop for some dodging & burning, including a subtle vignette, and this photo was finished.

You can purchase “Fall Serenity” in numerous print sizes and styles online here.

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