November is a tough month for nature photographers in New England. Much of the wildlife has gone dormant or headed south. The leaves have all fallen and the ground is bare of snow. The predominant color is gray. A time for black and white photography!
Last Sunday, I headed out to photograph on a foggy morning. I had three thoughts in mind… winterberries, Meetinghouse Hill and Sky Farm.
Winterberries grown in wetlands and this time of year they are often the only color other than browns and grays to be found. I have a “photo” in my head of a large stand of winterberry with a distant hillside (gray and nicely blurred) in the background. I have yet to find this scene in my travels but I keep looking. On Sunday, I thought that the fog might make it easier to “isolate” winter berries photographically; it did, but not in the way I was expecting. The fog helped with some close shots of individual plants and branches.
Meetinghouse Hill and Sky Farm are in my thoughts on foggy days because they are easy to access high spots that are often fog bound and the fog can add some “mood” to photographs.. or in the case of Sky Farm, the Contoocook Valley below can be fog bound while the hill tops are clear. Alas, the fog was mostly gone by the time I got to Meetinghouse Hill. There were even patches of blue sky showing for a short time when I got to Sky Farm.
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The group of flags on Meetinghouse Hill were “found” and shot as you see them… I did not arrange or move them.