Still More Leaves

I've been taking more photos of autumn leaves. Many of the leaves are falling and there are lots of shapes and colors to choose from. I press some and let some dry and curl naturally.

Last year Dianne clued me in to looking at the back of leaves. The shot at the right is the back of a curled leaf taken with two flashes at grazing angles to emphasize the texture. The leaf structure really pops out in this shot.

There are two curled maple leaves below. The last shot is a close up of a leaf that was pressed flat while drying. The flashes were placed behind the leaf so most of the light is transmitted through the leaf. That really brings out the color, the imperfections, and the vein structure.

Click on any image to see a larger version in Flickr. They are all in my 2007 leaf set.

Some Leaves

The leaves are finally starting to get some color here. Because it was such a dry summer, some of the leaves just died and don't have much color. But there are some nice colors. It's a pretty time of year.

Here are a few leaf macros. The first is a partially curled up maple leaf. The second is the underside of a dried, curled leaf. I used a direct flash from the right and a diffused flash from the left to accentuate the veins. The bottom photo is a leaf I pressed flat and let dry. Not a lot of color, but I like the texture.

Time to Rake

More Fall Color

When I returned home yesterday after a 3 day trip to upstate New York, I was amazed at how fast the maple tree outside our place had changed color. I like the way the sunlight was filtered through the upper leaves. Click on the photo to see a larger version. I also added some other photos I took yesterday. Browse through the photostream or the leaf set on the right side of the Flickr window.

Flying on Sunday

I flew a bit this afternoon. It's nice flying when the temperature and humidity are lower. The performance of the plane improves a lot when the density of the air goes up. I notice it most on climbing. It was a bit cloudy so the light wasn't the best, but you can see from the photo below (taken about 2500 feet above the Caesar's Creek area) that the trees are looking very pretty after several cold mornings.

Picnic

It was another beautiful day today. It was perfect weather for an employee picnic for the company Dianne works for. It was held at Woodland Mound park. There was a catered lunch and lots of activities for the adults and kids. I have a few pictures of the cornhole games (a beanbag toss), the water balloon toss, and a couple examples of the pumpkin decorating by the kids. It was a nice picnic and it was nice to meet some of the new people in the company.

Fall in the Air

The mornings are getting cool, it's getting dark earlier, and some of the leaves here are changing color. Here is a view in our neighborhood. It's a pretty time of year. The other night, Dianne and I went for a walk and we were crunching acorns on the sidewalk under our feet. That action brought back memories of Fall as a kid trying to squeeze in some play time in the nice weather -- before having to bundle up for outdoor fun in the winter. The acorns given up by the oak trees in the Fall were not only useful to the squirrels getting ready for winter, they were also good ammo for us in mock battles or as a diversion tool to distract the searcher during a game of tin can alley. Do kids do stuff like that anymore or is that just too crazy in the video game, cell phone, and MySpace era?