Portland Japanese Gardens

It is now kind of a guess about the best days for photographing autumn leaf colors. When placing your bet, you have to balance the maturation of the colors against the storms which strip the leaves from the trees.

I think the best color in the Portland area is still a day or two away. I went to the Japanese Gardens today, on my afternoon off. The lighting was disappointing. The Japanese Garden is set in large stands of Douglas firs, which places most of it in shadow after about 2:45 pm or so. This photo was the last bit of visually interesting light I saw. All photos after this one were subjects which had to make do with flat, even shady lighting.