Axtell Anceney Road Photo Drive (Southwest Montana)
Faced with a beautiful fall day in Bozeman, I had a decision to make: try to get in one more round of golf, or slip out for some fall photography. Given that I'm still limping around a bit on a bum leg, I decided it might be better to skip walking nine holes and go on a photo drive instead. It doesn't hurt that great photo shooting days have been hard to come by this fall, what with the sub-freezing weather we had in early October. We really didn't have any fall color thanks to the early freeze, but the crisp blue sky on display today was enough to entice me out with my camera.
I decided to drive the Axtell Anceney Road, which connects US 191 (the road to Big Sky) with SR 84 (the road to Norris). This road is impassable when wet, but we haven't had any moisture in the past week so I was good to go. One of the things I love about Montana is how easy it is to find relative solitude so quickly. After driving Axtell Anceney only 4 miles, I had the road to myself for the next two hours - with the exception of two vehicles, two dirt bikes, and a guy driving a tractor. I shot only 88 frames today - several bracketed exposures for HDR (which I decided were unnecessary after getting the photos into LightRoom) and several of the same composition using different lenses just to play. Here are my favorite shots from the day.
