Having Fun with Leave Abstracts

OK. Leaves are falling. Sad, but that's just the nature of things. And instead of complaining about the cold and dreary season that's about to come upon us, we can still have fun! Just take a macro lens and get close to the ground. And do not focus on the "nice" leaves only. I found the half broken down ones even more interesting. See this example below.

The trick is to find a flat one. Once they lay around for a while, they get dry and wrinkle up. And wrinkles require too much depth of field that a macro lens at that magnification usually does not offer that easily. Sure, bringing leaves into your studio and putting them under a glas to flatten them might work as well... but I prefer to take photos of objects in their natural environments.

And then just try different angles and compositions. Find out what works best only on a bigger screen once the image have been downloaded. You can still rotate and crop, but you loose resolution and quality in the process. So try to get as close to a good composition already while shooting.

In post processing you can then add more contrast or clarity, sharpen the image and optimize the colors. Those subjects without a background reference are quite forgiving.


Maple Leaf Abstract

Shortlived Foliage Season 2017

A very dry second half of Summer 2017, together with windy and rainy conditions on the Columbus Day weekend will probably shorten the Vermont Foliage Season this year. After our photo tour on Saturday under overcast skies, Sunday was partly sunny again. We decided to explore the local Preston Pond area in Bolton. It features a few beaver ponds and a beautiful outlook, called Libby's Look. Thanks to the high dynamic range sensor of my SLR and the editing capabilities of Lightroom, even the backlighting conditions in late afternoon resulted in good photos from the top. Instead of the all too common broad view of colorful trees, I played with reflections, abstracts, camera movement and sunstars. Oh what glorious colors and photographic opportunities nature provides!


Preston Pond Loop Abstract


Sunstar


Libby's Look

Preston Pond Reflections (I)


Preston Pond Reflections (II)

Spider Webs

Late summer and Fall 2017 brought a lot of foggy mornings. And one day I finally managed to get out early enough before it all burned off. Equipped with rain gear and my camera, I ventured into the field southwest of out house. I was more interested in the dead trees, but ran into those perfect spider webs that caught my eye. No spiders at home in many, but still... the dew made for very nice images. The biggest challenge here: Just the slightest breeze can bring them out of focus...
Spider Web (I)


Spider Web (II)


Spider Web (III)

First Snow

First Snow (Smugglers Notch, VT)

First Snow II (Smugglers Notch, VT)
Still experimenting to find the right settings of LR/Blog export plugin, but I am getting there... This post shows two images from late October when we drove up Smugglers Notch for a short walk. The first snow made for a beautiful contrast to the yellow/orange leaves at that altitude.