On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BretH
Answering a call for fall colors where we live. Peak colors have mostly faded from central Virginia east of the Blue Ridge, but there is beauty in the subtler colors of approaching winter. Here are some shots taken in the last few days here in Charlottesville.
Our redbud tree has faded, the maples lining the street are starting to go and the pineapple sage in our backyard is busting out. Of course it’s in the 80s here today so who knows what tomorrow will bring. Our roses are blooming again!
Maple trees lining the Main Street in and out of our neighborhood.
Oaks in the parking lot of one of the hospitals here. Was there for a non-medical event and had a walk around with my camera and a 80’s vintage Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 lens, one of the reasons I love the micro four thirds camera format. This and the next two photos are taken with that lens.
Poison ivy on a rock wall. Sometimes it’s the little compositions that I miss unless I’m in “photography” mode. And a reason that, although the iPhone takes great photos, I love taking photos with a “real” camera.
Sycamore leaf. Love the background that lens gives.
Taken with the iPhone on an early morning walk with the dog by the Rivanna River.
eclare
Beautiful photos, thank you! I think it’s been too dry where I live to get much color.
NeenerNeener
You’ve got maples actually turning red! My usually reliable October Glory maple is turning orange instead of red, and has already lost about half its leaves about two weeks earlier than normal. We’ve had a very wet summer and fall.
SiubhanDuinne
Gorgeous photos! I love those oak trees, and am so thankful that the hospital authorities decided not to rip them out in order to accommodate a few more cars in the parking lot.
Mai Naem mobile
Beautiful pics. They look like paintings.
HinTN
Oaks have such subtle color in Autumn. Those are majestic trees. Being able to control the depth of field is a great part of good photography. Nicely done with the ivy.
AM in NC
Just lovely – thank you. The beauty of that evil poison ivy just slays me.
Up until last year we owned a gardening store in CVL – love your town. Nice to visit through your photos this morning!
Jeffro
Well hey, neighbor – these are some great pics!
I keep meaning to take some shots of the trees near Fry’s Spring while heading in to work. They are RED right now. The ones around Scott Stadium are super-orange too, really pretty!
Geo Wilcox
We have many large catalpa trees in our rural neighborhood. Several are over 100 years old. They have huge, dinner plate sized leaves that are super sensitive to temperatures. Every once in a while they hang on to their leaves and we get a deep freeze. The next morning when the sun hits those leaves they fall like the Monty Python Leaf skit. It’s a treat to watch them and see that within a half an hour of the sun hitting them, all the leaves are off the trees and on the ground.
Now I have to mow them off the trails so we can walk without needing hearing protection. Those leaves make a LOT of noise when they are dry and are super slippery when wet.
UncleEbeneezer
One thing I miss about living back East are the maple trees. Out here the only fall color we get in the E. Sierra are aspens and cottonwoods. So mostly gold and some orange. Miss those reds.
CCL
Love the composition of these photos! Very nice to wake up to!
Eyeroller
@SiubhanDuinne:
Not to worry, the only place that photo could have been taken isn’t a “real” hospital (no inpatients) and it will eventually cease to be a hospital at all. The “real” hospital across the street relies on huge parking garages. The other big hospital in town is very new and has a large parking lot (and a garage) and no ancient oaks anywhere nearby.
OzarkHillbilly
The hard freeze we got this past wkend killed all of our colors a few weeks earlier than usual. Thanx for the pics, BretH.
Albatrossity
These are wonderful. Thank you very much!
And I concur with the enthusiasm for the micro four thirds system!
Chris T.
That umbrella in the first photo is very … rampant. 😀
Miss Bianca
I was in VA in the fall a couple years ago and I found the colors just breathtaking. But, oh my word – the damp *chill* at night! I had forgotten what being east of the Mississippi was like, in that regard!
stinger
My niece lived in Charlottesville until a year ago. I never understood how she could move away! (Husband’s job change — and to another quite beautiful state — but still if I ever lived in Virginia I believe I’d stay there!)
Great shot of the sycamore leaf. And you have a lovely backyard and neighborhood.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
My Pineapple Sage plants are blooming too, here in N CA. Love the red, and the hummingbirds (what’s left of them), do too. It’s definitely moved from Indian Summer to November around here
My mother and her immediate family moved from Roanoke to San Francisco in the late 30s (she graduated from Berkeley after going to Virginia Intermont), so I’ve never spent time in VA, but I’ve heard about it. A lot of things, like calling me and my cousin “Miss” whoever, which I thought were just to make a little girl feel special, turn out to be Southernisms.
way2blue
Great photos. And a reminder what cameras with a good eye behind the lens yield. Thanks. I especially love the poison ivy one. We have poison oak here, and it’s turning red too.
BigJimSlade
Lovely!
citizen dave
Love the pics taken with a “real” camera!
Pink Tie
I miss Charlottesville so much! Gorgeous photos of a beautiful place. One of my sisters lives there, on the west side of town out past Farmington. My father and I both went to graduate school at UVa, and my husband went for undergrad. We got married in the chapel on Grounds & had our reception at the Bayly Art Museum. Wish we had a way to move back!