"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Maples and Oaks in Blazing Orange (2 of 2)

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From One Art: Letters by Elizabeth Bishop:

“Last week has been the most beautiful autumn weather. For three days the woods were blazing and we just wandered around admiring this leaf and that. But yesterday there was a windstorm and they all blew off.”

From Adirondack: Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East by Edward Kanze:

“The scene is of a dark forest, perhaps in the Adirondacks. A river pours from bottom center to middle center. Beyond a wooden gate on the left rises a big country house. Of simple gable design, the house has latticed shutters and a red roof that give it a Germanic feel. A rustic log bridge without side rails spans the river. The surface is decked with planks and wide enough to allow the passage of freight wagons and stagecoaches. There are no human figures. The style of this work is self-consciously Hudson River School, with stylized, almost tropical-looking vegetation…. Still, the season is clear….

“It’s autumn. Orange colors some of the trees, which may be sugar maples.”

Hello!

For this post, the second of two… more trees! more leaves! more orange!

If you would like to see my previous fall color posts for this year, they’re all organized under this tag:

Autumn 2021

Thanks for taking a look!

Maples and Oaks in Blazing Orange (1 of 2)

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From The Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau by Henry David Thoreau:

“I never saw an autumnal landscape so beautifully painted as this was. It was like the richest rug imaginable spread over an uneven surface; no damask nor velvet, nor Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any loom, could ever match it.”

From Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram:

“Whether in the heart of the city or the thick of the wilderness, our indigenous soul stirs and comes awake whenever we find ourselves thinking in storied form, and so the buildings lean toward us and the trees in the backyard begin to speak in low, groaning tones as the trunks rub against one another. If we are thinking in literate, logical terms then these tones are not voices, but when we’re thinking in stories then they are indeed a kind of speaking, for to the oral imagination every entity has its eloquence….

“The breeze is an elixir carrying the chemistry of the needles up through the double arch of our nostrils to burst as a steady tang on the moist membranes inside, while the autumn blue of the sky, as it filters through the branches, is itself a kind of wine casting a giddy charm upon our limbs, making us crouch and leap with pleasure….”

Hello!

For this and the next post, I’ve assembled photo collections of large trees around the neighborhood and at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens, those whose leaves turned seriously orange over the past couple of weeks. These are maple and oak trees, not to be confused with orange trees at all; though if one was speaking in color, it wouldn’t be wrong to call them orange trees. What????

They really are massive trees; you can get some sense of the scale from those images below where I included nearby brick sidewalks (this one, for example). Photographing them from different positions and angles (and in a mix of clouds and sun) was definitely an immersive autumn experience.

If you would like to see my previous fall color posts for this year, they’re all organized under this tag:

Autumn 2021

Thanks for taking a look!

Autumn Groundcover (2 of 2)

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From John Muir Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies and Letters by John Muir:

“During these blessed color-days no cloud darkens the sky, the winds are gentle, and the landscape rests, hushed everywhere, and indescribably impressive. A few ducks are usually seen sailing on the lake, apparently more for pleasure than anything else, and the ouzels at the head of the rapids sing always; while robins, grosbeaks, and the Douglas squirrels are busy in the groves, making delightful company, and intensifying the feeling of grateful sequestration without ruffling the deep, hushed calm and peace.

“This autumnal mellowness usually lasts until the end of November. Then come days of quite another kind. The winter clouds grow, and bloom, and shed their starry crystals on every leaf and rock, and all the colors vanish like a sunset.”

Hello!

For this post, I took a closer look at the autumn ground featured in the previous one (see Autumn Groundcover (1 of 2)) and picked out a few prominent leaves that could be isolated and photographed with a macro lens. There are five such images below, followed by five additional recreations with the backgrounds rendered as black. On black backgrounds, the shapes, colors, and textures really stand out, don’t you think?

If you would like to see my previous fall color posts for this year, they’re all organized under this tag:

Autumn 2021

Thanks for taking a look!