New England Fall - Part 3

Now that my mood had improved again after getting a couple of nice photos, I figured it was time to step it up a bit and make sure I got to Sleepy Hollow Farm before the sun went down.  After all, it was the top spot on my shot list for this trip and if nothing else, the one place I really wanted to make sure I got a good photo before heading home.  I'd actually planned my drive through Vermont and New Hampshire, in a way that it would bring me past this location on 4 different days, JUST in case the weather was bad on any of those days, or maybe the fall colors hadn't hit peak yet and I could see it over the course of a week and maybe get super lucky and catch it on a great day.  That was my thinking anyway as I planned the trip out. 

The closer I got to the farm's location to more I realized I really had missed the best of the fall colors.  I was passing more and more areas where the trees were bare and the ground was covered in leaves.  There were still a few trees that were holding on to the last of their fall colors, but the best of the show was already over.

It didn't matter though, I was going to go get a shot of Sleepy Hollow Farm either way, and I kept telling myself that maybe I'd get lucky and get a pretty sunset instead.  I had no idea which way the farm faced or even if the sun would light it up during the golden hour, but hey, you have to stay positive in moments like this when you start to think about how far you've traveled just to take this one photo.  LOL

As I watched the sun get lower in the sky, I kept thinking that maybe I would get lucky after all.  The sky wasn't going to light up with amazing colors or anything, as there just weren't the right kind of clouds to make that happen, but the golden light that was falling across the valley was making everything look great and I was just about to the farm.

I came up over the next little hill and then suddenly there it was and I was so happy I'd planned on getting here 2 hours before the official sunset.  It turns out that the valley the farm sits in runs north and south and the sun was already being filtered by the trees on the hill behind me.  It would be dark here at least an hour before sunset because the sun was going down behind the hillside behind me at a scary fast pace.

I couldn't believe my luck though as everything was bathed in this really strong golden light.  I grabbed my camera gear out of the car and set up really quick and this was one of the first photos I shot here.

It wasn't the shot I had imagined, with all the trees covered in vibrant fall colors, but heck, it still wasn't a bad shot and the golden light, and the trees in the background still having some leaves on them kept it from being a total bust.

I think I hung out here for just over an hour, waiting to see if more clouds would move in overhead and catch the last of the sunlight before the sun completely set, giving me a chance for an even better photo that day, but no such luck.  I decided that I'd go find a motel in the area and stay the night close by and come back up first thing in the morning to catch sunrise here and see if maybe the light would be even better in the morning.

This post is getting kind of long, sorry about that!  I will stop here and tell you about my morning in my next post.  This one is scheduled to post on Thursday the 28th so if you want to hear the rest of the story, check back on Monday the 4th.  I think I'm going to try to stick to the schedule of a new blog post every Mon and Thu until April when I have a trip to Scotland planned and will be trying to do a daily blog post from there while on the road.