New Jersey Color

Along the Delaware River, near Stockton, New Jersey.

Weather conditions this year seem to have prepared the way for one of the best seasonal viewing conditions in memory.

Within the last week, a metamorphosis of autumnal color from the trees and shrubs of northern New Jersey has resulted in living scenes of brilliant change for everyone to enjoy.

 

When prompted by such beauty, I’m unable to resist the urge to pick up a camera.  Both photos in this post were taken during the latter part of the afternoon when the sun’s light grows softer and makes it much easier to obtain a good shot.

 

Subsequent software processing of digitized images significantly helps to correct exposure mistakes made while shooting.  As most of you may already know, it’s almost impossible to record an image as accurately as the human eye sees it.

Only professional photographers and amateurs who get lucky enough produce acceptable digital photos on the first pass.  Even then, the pros can spend hours in preparation for a really outstanding photo shoot.  For the rest of us, it’s catch as catch can.

Washington Valley Road, Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Photography has been one of my hobbies ever since, as a young boy, I was given my first film camera – a Kodak Brownie.  It occurs to me to wonder how many of you reading this paragraph have enough years under your belt to conjure up what one of those magical, box-like image makers fitted with a tiny glass viewfinder looks like? 

 

The Brownie cameras depicted on this link were, believe it or not, more advanced than my first snapshot shooter.  As fate would have it decades later when film was still king, my career would bring the Bergerons to a suburb of Rochester, New York – the heart of Kodak country.

There, our family was destined to make friends with a neighbor who, as it turned out, was the research chief for Eastman Kodak.  No one could have known back then that it would not be that much longer before digital photography – let  alone modern smart phones and the Internet –would turn the entire market for picture-taking upside down.

   

C’est la vie!

Thanks for checking in; enjoy your weekend.

(Click on any image for an enhanced view.)