The autumn colours this year have been brilliant here in east Kent, even though dull weather has tended to subdue the effect. Most years, I go for walks in some local woods around this time to immerse myself in the feeling of autumn, and the change of the seasons. The picture shown here was made on one such walk last week.

It seems such a short time since I went on the same walk to enjoy the new outpouring of green leaves as they appeared in the spring. Those fresh brilliant green leaves are now fading into autumn yellows and turning to darker shades of coppery bronze before they fall to the woodland floor.

I'm only going to show one of the pictures I made because, for me, this expresses most of what I felt on the day. I stood still for quite a while, just listening to the trees as they moved fractionally in the nearly still air when faint breaths of wind passed through. As they moved, leaves pattered to the ground almost sounding like falling rain. In the distance, a patch of brilliant colour caught my eye: I walked towards it and, to my delight, the composition shown here simply appeared in front of me.

One of the things I like about this picture is the way the branches spread. Their patterns remind me of the veins in the leaves, nurturing even the individual cells. There is so much to explore in this picture, and I think the leaves help my eye to move through it. For instance, on the left, two branches come down and seem to embrace some leaves that retain their green-ness, as though to try to nurture them some while longer before they too must fall. The brightest area of the picture is at the top left: I think some people might urge me to crop out that bright area, given that it might draw the viewer's eye away from the body of the picture. But, for me, this links the leaves to the sky; woodland leaves without the sky are pointless.

FWIW, this image was made with my Nikon D810 and 70-200mm lens at f/2.8 and 140mm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS - as a note to link back to my last entry, petrol is now generally available again, but is wildly expensive. And of course, there is plenty else going on to keep the crisis quotient up, which I won’t bore you with. But, on the bright side, aircraft powered by electricity have made a technological step forward (big smiley face!)