October Photo Walk: Fall Colors
First, let’s talk about the Fall. Many consider it to be the most beautiful time of the year! As our first reference tells us, “Gorgeous colors vibrantly encoring the end of summer as the trees put themselves to bed for the long sleep of winter.”
What happens that makes the leaves turn to such vibrant and beautiful colors? It all starts with photosynthesis. Leaves typically produce their vivid hues of green from spring through summer into early fall through the constant creation of Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the key component in a plant’s ability to turn sunlight into glucose (a sugar), which in turn feeds the tree. Many millions of these Chlorophyll cells saturate the leaves, ultimately making them appear green to the eye.
Present in leaves and trees are other colored substances. As the Fall days begin to get shorter and shorter, the production of Chlorophyll slows to a halt. As the Chlorophyll disappears the other colors present in the leaves begin to appear. Actually, without the presence of Chlorophyll in the leaf, the bright golds, reds, yellows, and browns would be the natural colors seen year round. Read more about how it all happens here. You will have to click the address below to reach the page.
https://smokymountains.com/area/ and click on the Fall Foliage Map
And now that we’ve talked about Fall, let’s get back to how it looks. The next few photos come from a 23 photo slide show you can see at the link below. These photos were taken in the Southern USA at the very beginning of the season of change and give a strong hint of what is to come.
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/life/2016/10/15/october-photo-walk/92117356/
As we head a bit further north we see that colors are more present since the sun stopped creating our green color sooner. Here are two photos taken recently in Pennsylvania.
You can see more of this set of photos at:
https://longwoodgardens.org/events-and-performances/events/autumns-colors
And now into New England we see that peak foliage season is already here.
See more New England photos in the slide show at:
http://www.travelchannel.com/interests/fall/photos/new-england-fall-foliage-photos
Now that we’ve seen the range of colors that appear in the Fall let’s get out this weekend and see how our regions’ colors are developing.
Let us know what you see.
Walter Krieg
wkrieg@dotphoto.com
http://www.dotphoto.com
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