INTENSE AUTUMN

Today was a real show-stopper—one of those knock-your-socks-off October days that can make up for a week's worth of gloomy weather. As a photographer, you almost hate to see such days comes along because when you show folks your photos, they automatically assume you've pumped up the colors in Photoshop or some other digital manipulation program.

No way a maple can be that fiery orange-red, or a sky so deeply, intensely blue!

Hey, I was out there, Nikon in hand, looking at those trees and that sky with my own two eyes…and even I had trouble believing the extravagant reality of the over-the-top hues no artist with brush or lens could ever hope to capture. There were times when I didn't know whether to laugh with joy or cry from the sheer, soul-stirring wonder of autumn's impact.

When folks talk about moving to the South or Southwest—those lands of endless summer, where every cookie-cutter day is just like those days before and the ones to follow—I think about what I'd miss…these bright October days when summer's green woods suddenly becomes a patchwork riot of red and orange, yellow and gold, crimson and scarlet and burgundy and amethyst.

No amount of palm trees swaying in the tropics, nor cactus and hoo-doo rocks in the desert, could come anywhere close to comparing with an October day when the leaves don their fancy dress, and the sky spreads out an azure counterpoint.

Today simply reiterated what I've long believed…that if through some misfortune of logistics I were forced to miss what I consider a real autumn—even for a single year—my heart would surely break.