Fall Colors, Pointillist Style

Pointillist Fall Colors, Branch Brook Park. Like a beautiful pointillist painting, this photo shows the shimmering, sparkling fall colors in Branch Brook Park, Newark, New Jersey. And, yes, this is a photo, not a painting! To get this effect, I used my 70-210mm lens and zoomed in on the details in these leaves from across a small pond. The telephoto zoom lens has the effect of flattening perspective. I stopped down the lens to F:13 to get as much sharpness as possible. However, the leaves were moving slightly, enhancing the painterly effect in this photo. Since the sun was popping in and out of the clouds, I waited until the sun was free of clouds and strongly illuminating the leaves before taking the photo.

How to capture beautiful fall colors

Many times other photographers wonder how I get so much color saturation in my fall color images. In most cases I add only a very mild amount of saturation in Photoshop. The big factor is simply waiting for the the best light to illuminate the scene before shooting. That can mean coming back early or late in the day, or, waiting for clouds to move so that my subject is in the best possible light. This photo is the result of capturing strong light illuminating a colorful subject. Simply waiting a few minutes for clouds to move can dramatically change the look of a photo.

Camera: Samsung GX 1S, Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm F:3.5 lens. Raw image converted with Raw Therapee 3.0 Alpha 1, AMaZE Demosaicing.

I’ll be adding new fall color photos to petersonlive.com. Visit me there!