The days are getting slightly shorter; the temperatures are starting to get slightly cooler. This can mean only one thing. Autumn, my favorite season by far, is finally almost here!
With the arrival of Autumn comes the annual changing of the colors when the leaves change from their Spring and Summer greens to their various shades of reds, oranges, and yellows. Some years the colors are widespread and stunning, and, some years, they are patchy and not as vibrant. One just never knows until it actually happens, which adds to the excitement.
But, regardless of the extent of the color, it never seems to last very long. Timing is everything when it comes to photographing beautiful fall foliage. Just a day or two can be the difference between photographing trees full of colorful leaves or trees that are bare with their brown leaves lying on the ground. When I discovered this scene, it was in that short transition period between the time when the leaves are on the trees and full of color and when they have fallen to the ground and turned brown.
Setting up my camera, I first composed the scene to include only the leaves. But, I was pleased with that. I then recomposed the image to include the trunk of the tree that was the source of the leaves. I felt this added some context to the image.
Complete depth of field was a must for this photograph, and one way to achieve that is to have the plane of the sensor as parallel as possible to the plane of the subject. However, this composition required the camera to be pointed at an angle to the plane of the leaves. To maximize depth of field, I needed to use a small aperture, which then required a slow shutter speed to achieve proper exposure. Fortunately, this wasn’t a concern since there was no wind to stir the leaves.
I had originally wanted to include the entire tree in the photograph, but that would have also included a strip of buildings in the background. To eliminate the buildings, I angled my camera downward until the buildings were just outside the frame. This, of course, precluded me from including anything more than just the tree trunk. However, looking at this picture now, I think including the whole tree would have given it too much weight in the final image. Having only the tree trunk provides a nice balance between the tree and leaves.