My mother is fall color obsessed. Growing up, she would ‘torture’ my siblings and I by pointing out every instance of fall color as we drove around our California suburb. “Wow! Emily, look out there! Look that that fall color!” “Gorgeous fall color!” “Look that that Japanese maple-— beautiful fall color!” “Those leaves! Fantastic fall color!”. There are a lot of trees in the suburbs and I admired a lot of fall color.

Now, older and wiser, I can admit that my mother was right. Fall is absolutely beautiful because of the red, orange and yellow leaves set against blue skies and green grass. Here are a few tips on how best photograph this dynamic season.

Shoot in the golden hours around sunrise and sunset

Don’t ignore overcast days – the shadows are softer and the mood is different

Don’t forget to bring a tripod! – preserve detail (think ISO 100) and keep photos shake-free when shooting at dusk

Look for color contrasts – yellow leaves on a blue sky or red leaves on green grass

Slightly underexpose your shots so colors aren’t blown out

Shoot camera RAW or play with different white balance settings – sometimes Auto WB isn’t going to cut it

Try a polarizing filter to bump up contrasts between complementary colors

Play with contrast, hue and saturation in Photoshop, iPhoto, Picnik or Piscassa

Now get on it before the landscape looks like this …

Happy shooting!