Hello Barry.
I' m glad that you'll visit our region.
The Jura area is characterised by a dense cover of forests, about 45% of the Franche Comté area is covered by woods, the highest of all French regions.
This is also a limestone area with many cliffs, flat "plateaux" carved by deep valleys and caves.
The area is quite wet so it is not as dry as Causses du Larzac for example.
In the Jura you find many lakes like Lac de Chalain and cascades like Cascades du Hérisson, but those sites are quite busy with many tourists, probably not the most attractive place for a large format photographer
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September is a too early for autumn colors, but is usually fairly sunny.
Depending whether you prefer architecture/culture/towns/villages or nature you'll have many things picturesque to put in front of your tripod.
Besançon the biggest city is worth a photographic visit, if you are interested in military architecture of the XVII-st / XVIII-st century. I let you read the web site.
http://www.besancon.org/
http://www.besancon-tourisme.com/
I could also recommend the Loue valley 30 km south of Besançon where in Ornans you have an exhibition of paintings by Gustave Courbet, a French painter born near Ornans, famous for his landscape views of the Jura.
Near Ornans I could recommend a visit to Source de la Loue, unfortunately this spectacular place were the river jumps out of a cliff never gets any light, it is very difficult to get a decent picture of it.
In the Département du Jura you have the area of Arbois with many nice wine-producing villages (le vignoble) one of the most famous picturesque sites is Reculées de Baume les Messieurs.
The area close to the Swiss border, Haut-Doubs and Haut- Jura offer spectacular vistas over Switzerland and the Alps. I could recommend either to go to Col de la Faucille above Geneva or to climb a small road above Métabief Mont D'or near Pontartler.
I have found that the Green Michelin Guide for touring is excellent for motorists who wish to see and discriminate in a relatively short time the most interesting aspects of Franche Comté, in order to prepare future trips on their own.
To finish I have no idea wheter the Island of Jura in Scotland shares the same origin of the place name as our Jura. Here Jura is supposed to be a celtic word for "forests".
