When I moved to Ireland I was determined to get back my enjoyable autumn walks. I thought Ireland with all its scenic beauty must be fabulous in the autumn with all the colours. But to my dismay I discovered that in our area the vibrant autumn colours are very absent. The first year I thought it was just because of the weather we had that year, but the next year it was the same – the leaves dried and fell off the trees before turning yellow or orange.

There are certainly areas where you can find some beautiful autumn colours – but not within my own walking distance.

When I was younger I used to love the autumn, and especially walking in the forest. I frequently went into the forest during hard times, because it was soothing and made me feel better. You may have heard about forest bathing, how immersing yourself in nature helps a stressed brain relax, and have a variety of health benefits.

Later in life my life was too busy in the autumn to really enjoy anything, and I even stopped enjoying the autumn altogether because it marked the end of summer and I dreaded the long winter so much. This was what, more than anything else, trigged the decision to move to Ireland. I’m truly someone who moved to Ireland for the weather. Not because I love rain so much but because I love green, mild and mostly snow-free winters. And when moving here, I was determined to bring autumn joy back into my life.

The lack of real autumn colours in my area is a bummer. My high season for photography is spring and summer, and when autumn comes, my photography slows down… a LOT. As we all know practice makes a difference, so to keep my camera going all year I really need to either find doable indoor projects (I don’t have space for fancy lighting gear, backdrops and whatnot) or find interesting subjects outdoors that aren’t season-dependent.

During the month of October I joined a walking challenged initiated by a Canadian blogger. It wasn’t really a challenge but an initiative to encourage people to be active every day, and share photos from their walks. I love walking and October can be lovely here, so perhaps it doesn’t sound like much of a challenge, but there’s also the added challenge of the elephant in the room weather, and I’m not Goggins. I struggle to go out when there’s sideways rain. But I only missed a few days because of storms and other miserable weather events.

I embraced this walking challenge, and I also made it a photo challenge. It’s about time I start thinking about what I wish we had, and start embracing what’s in front of me and making the best of it. We don’t have yellow-red maple leaves, but what do we have instead? I decided to make every walk an opportunity to photograph something new. Some days I was less inspired, but still did my best.

No red maple leaves magically appeared in front of me but I found other autumn features around here that I hadn’t noticed before.

The beauty of ferns

Ferns are magical in the spring just before they are fully developed, but they are also beautiful in the autumn. A bit broken, yes, but they shine like gold.

Hawthorn berries

The roads around here are lined by hawthorn trees. They have beautiful white blooms in the spring, and in the autumn they add a splash of colour to the landscape with red berries. Why haven’t I seen this before? Because I was too busy grieving the lack of orange leaves?

And… there’s some orange

There are small patches of forest in our area. To a Swede they’re more like parks, but never mind, there are trees and walking trails and what you need to satisfy the nature cravings. The one closest to us leads to a walking trail along the sea, so what’s not to like? I went there twice during October and both walks were like blowing away all the miseries of the world. And… I found colours. Not as vibrant as in more northern countries, but some varieties of orange. At last!

And I did photograph maple leaves, just not in the typically photogenic form.

And some more random subjects…

Did this challenge help me get over my autumn blues in photography? Not sure, but I enjoyed it. It helped me practise looking for something different to photograph, relax with the camera and just have fun with it. I also got some more practice (and a tad bit more confidence) with my extension tubes.

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This post kicks off my new photography-focused blog. You may notice that it’s a different domain. I now use my old domain to collect the links to all my whereabouts online for those who may be interested in that. If you were a subscriber (by e-mail) to the photography posts on my previous blog you don’t need to do anything and you will receive my new posts as normal (but hopefully more frequently!).