Autumn Cotton

Dropping lower allowed me to focus your attention on this one particular street with its plethora of color. I really wanted to focus on this street and I love how you see this parallel lines of different color. It's like these trees were purposefully planted this way, such that the towering Redwoods would give off a bit of green to contrast the yellow and red of the maples. This is one of the first photographs I took on the first night, and as you've seen, I kept coming back to this. It was difficult to photograph because a number of buildings just outside the edge of this distracted from the photo -- particularly a giant school with its sports fields that broke up the beautiful color of the neighborhood. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/40 sec, ISO 100

Mansion Land

I nearly didn't include this photograph in the collection because there was far more color in other parts of the neighborhood, but what ultimately drew me to come back to this were the HOUSES. Should I say *mansions*? Can you imagine living in one of the homes? They're absolutely huge. It also only seems fitting that these huge houses are also shielded by the largest tree in the world -- Redwoods dot the huge mansions. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/40 sec, ISO 100

Tie Die Cotton Balls

The forecast for my first night was predicting a colorful sunset, which is why I started to prepare to take the drone out for a spot about 15 minutes away. At the last minute I decided that a nice sunset with red and yellow trees would also go well and made the decision to photograph the fall colors instead. I kept flying over this particular row of trees. One after another they lined up with color. I had hoped to photograph them more perpendicular, so you could see more of their color, but I couldn't control where the sky was lighting up with color. I thought the trees looked a little like cotton balls. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/240 sec, ISO 100

Color at Home

I've lived in Menlo Park for over a decade and every November I've always noticed the trees turn red, orange and yellow. I've never particularly paid close attention to how much color there is other than to note: "Hey, fall color in the Bay Area *does* actually happen!" I also never thought to try to take photos of them because the neighborhoods don't typically seem like your normal landscape photography scene. Despite living here a decade, I never really explored my neighborhood. We have beautiful redwood hikes within 15 minutes and we'd always adventure to a "real" hike. However, COVID changed all of that: the parks were initially closed and we needed to do *something* for our weekend walks. It turns out I have an absolutely BEAUTIFUL neighborhood. And guess what -- there's Redwoods ALL OVER. Jeff started to challenge those of us in his Escaype photography group to look at scenes in a new light. He would institute weekly challenges or explore us to photograph as close to home as possible. He gave me a location about 10 minutes away with a challenge to photograph it. And I was heading out to capture a nice sunset from there when I realized: "maybe I should stay here and try to capture the fall colors from the drone." So I did exactly that. This series is a set of photographs taken from above, using a drone, over the course of 2 sunsets in Menlo Park. The fall colors were peaking and I wanted to look at them from a new light -- in a way that might combine the beauty of the trees with the man-made structures next to them. I did my best to protect my neighbors privacy and used angles that did not peer into their homes. I hope you enjoy. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 100

One after another

The line of trees all turning color, one after another, drew me to this scene. I was trying to find a way to capture as much as the color as I could and tried several different positions. Looking straight down the road and you only saw one tree. Looking perpendicular to the street and you lost the trees in the background. So I went diagonal and used the houses, the street, and the grid pattern of the neighborhood to show off as many trees as I could. You can even see a few Redwood trees towering in the back (right). I love how the tips of these trees are turning red, while lower down they're still yellow and green. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/40 sec, ISO 100

Bay Color

While the sky was looking beautiful to the west, I also turned the drone around and looked *east*. There, too, the color was lighting up beautifully over the Bay Area. I used the circular nature of this neighborhood to "cup" the trees and draw the eye back towards the mountains. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO 120