No season brings out photographers like autumn. It's not only because this is arguably the most colorful time of year — spring, summer and winter are, in their ways, every bit as beautiful.

Understated Autumn

It's also because no other season reminds us so strongly yet so sweetly that another year has passed, and it is the photographer's annual lot to record it; both to capture its fleeting beauty and to try to stop time in its tracks.

The challenge is to do so in a meaningful way. The fall is such a popular subject that camera-laden tourists are as common as squirrels gathering nuts. We are all familiar with this visual clichi: a country road winding into woods ablaze with golds, reds and yellows, and standing somewhere in the picture, a weathered barn.

Yet you need only take time to consider the pictorial variables at your disposal — which are here grouped into five main areas — to return from an autumn excursion with photographs that are personal and unexpected, whether you use a professional-quality 35-mm single-lens reflex camera or a basic point-and-shoot.