I recently spent a couple of weeks in southern Utah and the aspens I saw were almost devoid of color. A little was still hanging on.
D850, 200-500mm
2 Likes
I think the lack of leaves and color actually worked out in your favor. Nice one.
Harley, I love the stark beauty of this image. I think the sparseness of this fall color has a lot of emotional impact when it stands in contrast to the bare trees. I like the cool treatment of the aspen trunks and shadows, it helps magnify the remnants of fall color. And the naked aspen grove at the top adds a lot to the image for me. This image is all about the rich light, and the color contrast, I wouldn’t change a thing about it, such a beautiful image.
Harley, great detail overall even with extreme starkness in the scene. Sometimes, less is more… 
All said above – this is more interesting to me than when the trees were in full foliage. I would even consider a pano of about the bottom 2/3 of the frame.
When I passed through this area, the leaves were already gone completely. I really like how this turns out. I can almost feel the bright sun in the cold weather.
Nice isolation of these stands. I think the bare trees with splotches of color make the image much more interesting than just a blast of yellow aspen. Processing looks good to me.
Very enjoyable interplay of lateral and vertical subjects, of color and bland, of still-lively and dormant. I enjoy the highly colored trees in the midst of their dormant fellows.
For me, the bright rim of trees on the top edge is a bit eye-catching. In the attachment, I tried to tone it down and also burned a little deeper contrast into the shadows and sagebrush. However, I realize that that contrast might reduce the cold austerity that is valuable in your image.
The layers of almost bare aspens give a nice sense of depth. I can feel the chill in the air.
Love this Harley! I think the timing of the seasonal transition here is so much stronger than the classic autumn aspen stands. The light here is beautiful and I can’t think of anything that I could suggest to improve this. I can imagine just kicking back and starring at this scene until the sun went down…