More leaves, less words. These pictures seem to become more interesting the more time I spend editing and closely looking at them. And not only on the main subject, the leaves, but also on the way they interact with their environment. Can’t help it – I really like those images.
The Stihl sound is quite different from the steel guitar sound, despite of similar sounds of the words. The first one is giving these days an almoust continous concerto. It’s end is not yet foreseeable as the trees still have good stock of leaves to distribute.
Oh, and if you wont to see wonderful portrait of a single leaf, hurry to head over to the Capture this blog of Laurie Jackson. Definitely worth a look!
Not related to today’s historical date, these maple leaves grabbed my attention because of their graphical complementarity.
After a long dry period now autumn rain calls the shots. Here in Bad Reichenhall lmost all fountains are switched off and covered by now, with the ones in the spa gardens as lonely exception. But the water doesn’t spray in the fountain any more, instead cold raindrops make strolling a different experience.
The gold of the maple leaves slowly starts to fade, and sometimes it seems as if this cold and this humidity, that reinforces the felt coldness, also affects the passers-by – head between shoulders, viewing straight ahead now everybody tries to minimize the time she spends outside of buildings. Winter doesn’t seem to be far anymore.
Maybe I am overdoing it with my faible for low DoF, but then I find the autumn leaves in that context really wonderful – beauty not in a grain of sand but in a single leaf, alone or against just the idea of a background, blurred to an extend where the colors only signal the wonders of an autumnal forest.
Today I finally held in my hand what I was looking for since re-starting photography: A probably 15 years old second hand Minolta 1.4/85mm lens. Aah – that were the times when all lenses were built completely from metal. That definitely gives a solid feeling! And then that front lens, what an amount of glass! But I didn’t bother for long with admiring the outer qualities, instead I used my lunch break for a walk in the nearest park. That shallow DoF and blurry background is amazing (the shot above was taken stopped down half a f-stop) but what was demanding at least for the first frames is the discrepancy between the viewfinder image and what gets recorded on the sensor: In the viewfinder you simply do not see that shallow DoF and background blur or bokeh. The reason is the “optimisation” of the former ground glass into an array of micro-structures that are much brighter than any groundglass could be, but similarly to a loupe offers a virtual image to the eye. And this image does not obey to even only widely similar optical laws of the rendering on a groundglass. Well, without that artifice the viewfinder would be unbearably dark with the zoom lenses that are the standard now.
I am a happy camper for now, as this lens allows me to bask in low DoF images and, as I hope, those wonderful airy discs of out-of-focus light sources. Additionally I will try those fine portraits where only the pupils are rendered sharply but already nose and ears get enwrapped in soft and flattering unsharpness.
Found in the pedestrian area. Due to the (usually) moderate climate, sycamore trees grow to large sizes here in Bad Reichenhall.
the sunlight had selectively warmed this leaf so it sunk into the ice over the days. the low evening light then created this almost surreal look with the dark black borders.
it was the first time that one of my twin daughters, now six years old, came with me shooting. fortunately she did not get bored, but i had to explain several times that during exposure she was not allowed to move in order to avoid vibrations in the cassata-style soil.
