New England Fall Foliage Glory at Bubble Pond

Bubble Pond in Maine Acadia National Park is a location I always wanted to visit and explore with my camera but the incredible seascape, landscape, and nature Photography Opportunities along the park look road distract from that ultimate goal and so I never before arrived in time for the prime lighting conditions at the beginning and end of the day. The pond is a short drive along the park loop road from the Jordan House parking area. This last October I decided to go straight to Bubble Pond without stopping along the way and I was not let down. The pond’s shoreline provided brilliant and beautiful New England fall foliage at its best. The waters of the pond were still and beautiful reflections were present. Although there are rocks and grass along its shore, lazy bones Juergen decided to set up tripod and gear not far from the parking area. There were plenty of other American and international photographers present but I found a great spot where I incorporated the grass and a rock as foreground features into the composition. After chit chatting with fellow photogs for a while I started focusing on the scenery and my composition. The evening light slowly but surely beautifully enhanced the bright colors of autumn while the evergreens remained in the shade of the surrounding mountains. The reflection was only interrupted for a short time when an otter decided to create a frenzy making us photographers change to our long lenses trying to capture the wildlife with our cameras. I tried myself but quickly realized that there would be no decent wildlife shot for me this evening because of fading and limited light.  So I switched back to my wide-angle lens for capturing the brilliance of an awesome autumn landscape. The aperture in this fall foliage picture was set to f/11 for maximum Depth of Field. The small aperture combined with an ISO100 setting resulted in an exposure time of  1/6 of a second. By accessing the scenery I decided to expose on the water reflection in the shade of the mountain and use a Neutral Density Filter across the sunlit fall foliage, bright sky and pond reflection thereby retaining some detail in the shadowed part of the image. During post processing I minimally adjusted contrast, lighting, and color saturation before sharpening the final fall foliage image.