ANOTHER WALK IN THE WOODS

We are definitely close to the end of the fall color season.  And, frankly, it was not a particularly good one from the point of view of richness of color.  This morning was cloudy, but it was a bright overcast and there was very little wind, so I decided to pay one more visit to our subdivision's woods to get some final shots of the fading color.

But first, I did take note of a shagbark hickory in the woods.  Most of the trees are varieties of maples, oaks, and the mundane deciduous trees, so this tall and very straight hickory, recognizable by its distinctive bark,  stood out.

I am still working to capture good shots of the foliage by pointing up and allowing the light to illuminate the translucent leaves.  I thought my results were mixed.

Here is another shot that I cropped down quite a bit.

For these shots I felt the dark branches gave the images a stained glass look, and they are generally where I set my focus.

Here is the shot that I thought was the most successful of this group.

I also too a number of "horizontal" shots.  In the following photo I was focusing on the clump of leaves and the tree trunk, planning to have the background be out of focus to draw attention to the subject for the shot.  This was shot at a wide open f/4 aperture to minimize depth of field.

Finally, I looked down and took a shot of the two leaves of a maple seedling that was surrounded by fallen non-maple leaves.

John