Guest Blog: Foliage Season Isn’t Over Yet

View Susan Cole Kelly’s slide show on YankeeMagazine.com/! Foliage season is more than half over, and the color is slowly migrating from northern to southern New England. The maples turned golden early enough so that there was a buzz about an early season, but it just didn’t happen. This year’s warm weather continued into October, delaying the frost that paints sugar maples a neon red. Then several autumn storms blew in, and blew away any leaves that had ripened enough to drop. So is it over? Nahhh, it isn’t over till the leaf lady sings! As I look forward to the second half of foliage season, I anticipate a very different experience. Concord and the North Shore of Massachusetts. Cape Cod. Rhode Island, with its forested interior and coast seeming like two different states. The Connecticut coast. Maybe a trip to Nantucket. Every year I think about following the color to Virginia or the Smokies in Tennessee, but there’s so much here, so close to home, well, why bother? Northern New England still has its late-autumn attractions. The snow goose migration in Addison, VT, is spectacular. The nightly creep of the snow line from mountaintop to valley foreshadows the coming season. And the rhime frost – actually fog frozen on branches – is magical. In New Hampshire, Mount Washington dons its winter coat early, as Currier and Ives villages prepare for the season with neat piles of firewood. I can’t cover Maine in one descriptive blanket. Its sparkling coast and shining lighthouses are my favorite November subject. Acadia’s woods, suddenly revealed by the sparse foliage, are quiet except for the swish of underfoot leaves. Snowy Mount Katahdin towers over timberlands turning pale as winter moves in. The land descends gradually from Massachusetts’ Mount Greylock to the villages around Quabbin to the tidal estuaries and shallow harbors of the coast. The early color of sugar maples gradually gives way to oak-pine forest near Boston and Cape Cod. Connecticut’s highlands and magnificent state parks are a photographer’s playground. Since the climate is milder, boats linger in the harbors and create lovely views well into autumn. In Rhode Island, the oaks’ colors are more muted, richer, and longer-lasting. Blueberry groundcover turns scarlet and saltmarshes glow orange. Autumn color unfolds above and below. Now that I think of it, I can’t wait to get started! I had intended this blog to be a discussion of how to fix common photography problems, and Yankee has graciously agreed to host me. Please be patient! I’ll be back soon with a problem – and a fix. Until then, join me outside in the foliage. Enjoy the slideshow! See more of Susan Cole Kelly’s photography at susancolekelly.photoshelter.com/ Join in on the photography discussion at Facebook.com/NewEnglandPhotography