Autumn colours at Westonbirt Arboretum

Each autumn I make a pilgrimage to an arboretum in England to photograph the autumn colours. I started doing this in 2010 when visiting Winkworth arboretum with the London Flickr meetup group.

For 2017 I decided to venture further out to Westonbirt Arboretum. It’s a longer drive, but nice to see a new park with a different variety of plants. Still, it’s more spread out so you have more to explore.

Long leaves of a tree are silhouetted against direct sunlight. — 2017/10/27
1/6000s at f/3.3, 105mm, ISO 100, Nikon D800

A close macro photo of a light orange maple leaf. — 2017/10/27
1/250s at f/8, 105mm, ISO 180, Nikon D800

I’m particularly fond of maples and sadly Westonbirt doesn’t have all that many - so this years’s photos are more muted.

A close macro photo of a beige maple leaf — 2017/10/27
1/250s at f/8, 105mm, ISO 360, Nikon D800

Many yellow-orange maple leaves are lit up in sunlight against a dark background. — 2017/10/27
1/750s at f/4.8, 105mm, ISO 100, Nikon D800

Autumn colours only appear for a brief window, which is hard to balance. You want to wait for a nice sunny day, but wait too long and you miss them. They also vary quite a bit across the UK - so a more southern arboretum will likely have better colours earlier in the year than a more northern one.

I was probably a few days early for the peak of Westonbirt’s colours - but I went when the weather was glorious, which made it worthwhile.