Motorcycle Road Trip Skyline Drive Fall Foliage Pictures
Michael ONeill Photographer Writer Motorcyclist Adventurer
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Motorcycle Road Trip Skyline Drive Fall Foliage Pictures

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable,

those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke


Yes…this is truly a simple photograph. Yet it has significant impact. People just seem to like it… a lot. On a Facebook page that I manage for my book “Road Work: Images and Insights of a Modern Day Explorer”, I posted this photograph shortly before the leaves started to change, and the fall foliage emerged, in the northeast United States. No one was more surprised than myself when the post garnered 5,000 “Likes”! The image was captured during a road trip on Skyline Drive in Virginia. This section of road is very close to the northernmost entrance to Skyline Drive at Front Royal, VA. As I entered the park heading south, the scene captured my attention and I pulled over to the side of the road and took this simple “snapshot” with my Nikon mirrorless camera fitted with a Nikkor zoom lens. Minimal editing was done to the original digital file using Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop software on my Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer. I wasn’t looking to create some great fine art piece but rather was just documenting the road conditions to share with my fellow motorcyclists. You see, wet leaves on the road surface constitute a dangerous hazard to two-wheeled travelers. They can be as slippery as mud or even ice…not a road condition that one wants to encounter when traveling on two wheels. Skyline Drive may be one of the country’s most beautiful byways. I have ridden its entire length numerous times, on both my BMW and Harley-Davidson motorcycles; including in the spring; when the leaves have barely emerged on the trees yet; in the summer when the weather is absolutely spectacular; and here, in the fall, when Mother Nature puts on her annual show of vibrant changing foliage. As a photographer, author, writer, long distance motorcycle rider, educator and adventurer I am blessed to travel all throughout the United States and Canada. My photographic images and written words have graced the pages of many magazines and online resources in the photographic, motorcycle, motorsports, travel and hospitality industries. The images you see here on my web site are just a small sample of my body of stock photography work (all of which is available for sale or lease) and I am available to discuss and undertake any creative project assignment that you may have in mind…preferably ones that I can reach on two wheels. I’ll use any excuse to ride, you know.