I decided to head up to Maine for the fall colors I hear they have this time of year. It's really only a few hours from me so I thought it was a little weird I had never explored there (other than when I was about 2 years old I think). The people who say it's a really beautiful state aren't lying, although I did get there at least a week before "peak" color when the entire state apparently explodes with the colors of autumn. There were still plenty of patches of color and beautiful scenes everywhere, it actually added a kind of fun challenge to try to get the colors that were there into my compositions.I had driven up to Bangor, Maine on Sunday (October 1st) from my parent's cabin in upstate NY. Up until that night I was still deciding between going to Baxter State Park in central Maine and Acadia National Park on the coast. In the end I couldn't decide so I went to both, starting with Baxter because I figured Acadia was kind of on my way back home. My first day I wasn't in much of a rush, my plan was to explore the park in the middle of the day and figure out a place for sunset. I did a little research beforehand and found that a lot of people like the view of Mount Katahdin, kind of the centerpiece of the park, from Golden Road. I also figured I'd want to check out the waterfall there because those are always fun to photograph.It's just under a two hour drive from Bangor up to the park entrance, and Golden Road turns out to be a kind of rough dirt road that isn't even technically in the park (as far as I could tell). After going down the road for a while and crossing a little one-car-at-a-time bridge, actually on the bridge, I saw why this was considered one of the best views of the mountain. The photo at the top of this blog was taken on that bridge a few hours later. Of course that seemed too easy, so I drove down the road for a few more miles and occasionally pulled over to climb through the brush trying to find a better view. There were some good ones, but not quite as great as from the bridge. I did like the view from a campground I stopped at, and managed to take a selfie there.

The mountain didn't feel as close there though, so I just kept that spot in mind and went back towards the bridge. Still determined to find a shot that was more difficult to get than just walking 10 feet from my car I hiked into the woods along the river. There were some paths through it and you could climb down to a thin beach at some spots. The best view I found here would have been obstructed by a lot of branches unless I climbed down a dirt embankment with no clear easy way back up. I also wasn't convinced that it was any better than the bridge, so I went back again and figured I could at least say I tried to make it more difficult for myself.It wasn't sunset yet though, and taking this shot in the middle of the day wasn't going to cut it for me. I went to the actual entrance of the park and drove about a half hour in to where the hike to the falls started. I think it was just over a mile mostly uphill and over huge granite boulders, really pretty enjoyable and maybe I'm getting into better shape because I wasn't completely winded at the end. It was a few hours before sunset when I got there, which I've found is usually a good time to shoot waterfalls. The forest darkens the area enough with the lower sun so you can easily get a long exposure but still have enough light.

After I got my long exposure waterfall I hiked down the trail to my car and headed back towards the bridge on Golden Road for golden hour. I got there a little after 5 and with sun setting just after 6 the light was getting really beautiful and bringing out the fall colors in the area. Now the view of Mount Katahdin was great, but I loved the scene looking a little farther over to the west at another mountain (which after a little searching turned out to be Doubletop Mountain). So I shot the below panorama of that mountain before turning back to Katahdin (for the image at the top of this post).

I take a lot of panoramas, especially when I have views like this, but I don't often share them because they're difficult to display well online. I love the way this looks though so I'm going to keep it here. After I got my golden hour shots of the mountains in Baxter I went back to Bangor for the night, my plan was Acadia the next day.