This alley of maple trees beside the Auditorium is Nalin's favorite place to play, hunt squirrels and sniff for traces of other dogs. We always walk this corridor to get to the waterfront and she can usually get rid of half her pent up energy before she hits the high grass. This time of year it is a huge pile of leaves that she likes to plow through like some dogs do with snow. The colors are pretty enough.
This was done the same afternoon as the previous post. I had collected a bag of leaves and used a glue stick to adhere them to a sheet of printer paper. then I hung it in the window. I think it would have worked better if I had worked from light to dark from the middle and had the reds around the edges. Oh well, I learned something for next time.
I was out walking Nalin one afternoon and decided to collect some leaves and try taping them in my dinning room window to catch the late day sun shining through them. Turned out pretty cool except the dust on the outside of the window pane got accentuated.
The earth tones of decay are sharply contrasted by the reds of the stems on this Oak tree, not to mention by the green background.
Absolutely stunning two tone color on the leaves of this shrub. I was lucky to come along while it was still clinging to the plant.
Here is another one of those instances where I had an interesting image and wanted to work to make it a little more than that. The easiest way was to use highlight hue to change the background color to something that blended better with the red of Persimmon leaf . The green would be a natural summertime color and goes well with red.
The Red Dogwood is spectacular in fall when the leaves turn crimson to try and help hide the berries from the birds. These shrubs are pretty plentiful in Verdun , especially along the waterfront. Not much editing was needed on this image.
The setting sun on a warm day provided the perfect backdrop for these Cottonwood leaves. A little bit of crop was all that was necessary to share this image.
This is another photo from the Thanksgiving Monday shoot. I followed this Birch leaf as it fell and snapped off a few shots as it hit the water. it is crazy that such a small thing can cause ripples like that on a moving river. Pretty much all the same levels were tweaked as on the previous duck photo.
When I took this shot I knew it was iffy because of the bright background. But it was worth a try and all it would cost me is time. And it was pretty interesting subject matter to me, so even though it didn't turn out great, it was still worthy of fiddling.
In editing, I did all my regular recovery, clarity, vibrance and exposure adjustments, then the cropping. Better, but no wow factor. The background still needed something. So I decided to go dark and do the leaves in silhouette. Blacks up, exposure down. I was drumming my fingers. Still not there. I then thought about Split Toning and changing the hue of the background. As I was sliding through the spectrum these turquoise blue/green tones spoke to me. Never be afraid to put time into a photograph you weren't initially impressed with if you like the subject matter.
I found this branch interesting because it contained all the colors of the leaf rainbow in the same place and in order. After making all the color adjustments I wanted in Lightroom, I cropped it to emphasize the branch.
So I decided that the image deserved a caption like 'color life cycle' or 'evolution of color'. But I knew that most people view a photo as they read - from left to right, top to bottom and wanted the green on the left hand border. So I went hunting for a way to flip the photo in Lightroom. I ended up finding an online manual for the program, and found the function in the Photo menu at the top. Finished product.
One more image from the hurricane Irene set. These stubborn maple leaves did not want to go gentle into that good night. The cluster clung to the clothesline for about three hours in the high winds. The weight of the rain was probably what kept it anchored.I just had to take a shot in admiration of its tenacity.
I went out on a beautiful evening (what's that? no storm warnings!?) for a little safari looking at things in a different light than I usually do. Down by the waterfront there are a few trees that are planted in a dividing formation. Lines like this are spattered throughout the park every half kilometer or so to give the dogs somewhere to bee line to when they have to pee instead of killing all the nice grass. This particular stand have burgundy leaves that took on a more orange/ red hue under the setting sun's rays.
No crop here, just some Recovery, bumped up the Contrast and Saturation a bit. Also went +40 on the Lens Correction to brighten the corners some. Last night was the first time in a while I went out vowing not to use the telephoto and stick to the stock lens. I like the results.
As a follow up note, I found out that these small trees are purple leaf Sandcherry bushes and fill the spring air with beautiful white and pink fragrant blossoms.
