#1408. Appalachian Seasons, Fall. II. October.
My year-long chronicle of the Appalachian Forest continues during the peak month of vivid color. The colors here may not equal those of New England, but they will do.
It’s worth driving a little distance to become entranced by fall foliage, as we did this year, going over to the West Virginia Highlands Scenic Highway.
But while enjoying masses of color, it’s also worthwhile to gaze at smaller things—at individual trees or bushes, or even individual leaves.
These are the “intimate landscapes” of Eliot Porter, if you can imagine them taken with a small Sony rather than a large Linhof!
I am captivated by the very beauty of fall colors—and, to be honest, by the beauty of the Appalachian forest in all seasons.
My time in the forest is not only healing (therapeutic forest bathing, an instrumental good) but also intrinsically satisfying (aesthetic basking in beauty, an intrinsic good). Beauty is an ancient fundamental category, ranking up there with Truth and Goodness in a trinity of supreme values. Beauty for us chiefly resides in appearance (though the Greeks thought there was greater beauty in something deeper), and appearance requires both perceiver and perceived. Perceptual beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder—or, more generally, in all the subject’s perceptual capacities, including (for us) hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and doubtless other senses.
But beauty is not only in the beholder’s eye; it is also in the things the eye beholds. Here’s a very abstract account of this “objective” beauty that surely has many qualifications: Beauty in things is the harmonious synthesis of a manifold—the more variety of disparate elements in the manifold and the more harmonious their synthesis, the more beauty.
What has all this to do with photographing fall colors? Well, nature in the fall provides a cornucopia of elements—wonderful hues of course, but also shapes, textures, tones, contrasts and so much more—that somehow fit together harmoniously. I think they fit together even better when synthesized through the experience of a photographer! Taking a picture of a beautiful scene sharpens the perception and, I think, the appreciation of its beauty. This is how I have appreciated this beautiful month.
October has a pervasive yellow tint, especially when backlit.
It was a dry month, with no rain for the first three weeks, hastening leaf-drop. Colors arrived late, by which time many leaves had fallen, so that there were not very many large arrays of color. But there were some.
And there is always delight in the details. The forest floor is like a Jean Miró painting in its complex variety and arrangements.
The newly fallen leaves form interesting patterns with previous arrivals.
As readers of this series know, I have a weakness for mushrooms—for viewing, not for gathering and eating! Their many shapes and colors intrigue me, and their evanescence is a lure for heading to the forest the day after a rain—they do spring up quickly, like mushrooms!
Fall colors persisted to the end of October. Here are two views of House Mountain on October 26, where the colors were intensified by slanting sunset light.
