Photo Therapy

What to do on a rainy Saturday after Thanksgiving?  This:

I got the last of my pressed leaves from the giant dictionary and played with my bucket of leaves for hours, until the camera battery died.

My daughter helped me with the lighting and composition and editing. I learned to play with the histograms and edit the pictures to make them pop. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do, but I just crop and crank up the black pixels.

I spent hours editing the leaf photo file from November. After deleting all the ones I could part with, this month's file has 1251 photos. That's maybe a few hundred too many. October's has 2055 pictures, so November was an improvement, photo-OCD-wise.

I know I should clean up the files, but who do I delete? All these pretty textures and colors and patterns - 

they remind me of stained glass windows in church, and sunny days, and earthy smells. They make me happy, even if they are filling up my hard drive.

I can't think of a better waste of time or space on a rainy Saturday.

Leaf Abstracts

I was just going to press a few leaves to play with, but I got carried away. I have leaves pressed everywhere, and playing with them backlit, macro has been way too much fun.These are from a frenzied but fun hour yesterday. I can't wait until I have a chunk of time to really experiment with light and focus.

I'm fascinated by the variations that light can cause. This little leaf....

... becomes yellow green and pinkish....

....but a slight tilt and the green fades and the purple pops.

This one is as lovely as stained glass windows. I'll be playing with this leaf a lot more.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to paint abstracts, but I gave up. Nothing I could create could come close to pleasing my eye like these leaf photos. Nature already made all the art I need. I'm just learning to catch it so I can look at it whenever I want to.

Happy Friday from the land of the easily amused.

Fall Madness

So, maybe I took 549 pictures yesterday, just in my little yard, but it's the viburnum's fault, for being so enchanting. I also blame the incredible quality of light in the woods in the morning, and the glowing magic light as the sun was setting too.  I was so intent on trying to capture the light, color and patterns that I almost forgot to smell. Oh my. I breathed so deep and long I got dizzy. Crunchy fall leaves, earthy brown smells, colors in every shade - I took pictures morning and evening until my hands were numb.  I'm making some DVD's for my mom and a certain leaf loving friend in California so I have a little excuse besides my insanity for all this excess.

These few selections are just from yesterday, just the viburnums, just one variety of the four I have in my yard. Don't even get me started on the Bradford Pear.......

Leaves that haven't left yet

The trees may be bare, but the understory is still rich with color. The viburnums range from muted lemon and raspberry sherbets to bronze, crimson, pink and green and everything in between. The wild dogwood are an amazing mishmash of color, and the wild grapes are a stunning pale yellow. I've been astonished at the variance in photographs depending on the time of day and available light. I have much to learn, but little patience for learning beyond my little photo play dates with myself. In most cases, the eye sees it as much lovelier and lusher than the camera. I tend to favor the mottled or the damaged leaves for some reason, maybe I feel a kinship with them somehow.

Tucker is having a grand time exploring the underbrush with me, and dreams of someday catching a squirrel, but don't worry, he is beyond inept. He makes a great companion on my expeditions, and sadly is a grand collector of burrs in that furry coat. Small price to pay for the nice fall walks.

Happy Fall, wherever you are.