Let It Be....

I was looking for fall color in Madison on Halloween day,

 

and noticed a few colorful maples as I drove by a cemetery.

 

 

 

 

 

I pulled in and parked and was pleased with the leaves and light on one big maple.

 

 

 

As I waited for the branches to be still enough to get sharp images, I found myself singing 'Let It Be' by the Beatles.

 

 

 



I did what I could with the color I found. I made a few images of fallen leaves on the ground and started walking down the cemetery road looking for more color.

 

 

 

 

The large oak trees had dropped most of their leaves and the sun kept going behind big clouds. When I got back to my car some employees were blowing the leaves off the grass and out from the headstones onto the road.

 

I was about to get in the car and leave when inspiration struck. Regardless of the light I should try and shoot the flying leaves.

 

So I walked over to where the men were working; there were three commercial lawn mowers with large blowers mounted on them and one mower with a leaf catcher on the front to push it all into piles on the road.

 

 

 

I made it a point to stay out of the way of their equipment as I looked for good angles and interesting compositions.

 

 

 

 

 

I tried different shutter speeds and found that faster was better.

 

 

 

I tried both auto and manual focus and auto gave better results. 

 

 

 

And finally, I found an angle with a colorful maple as they blew leaves out towards the road.

 

 

 

 

I use Adobe Lightroom to change raw files to jpegs for the internet. The next several photos are the normal image and then a more abstract version I created by changing only the clarity setting.

 

normal

 

abstract

 

normal

 

abstract

 

 

 

 

I like the soft focus images.

 

 

abstract

 

 

normal

 

 

 

 

 

After awhile the sun disappeared and the leaves were all to the road. I put the camera away and started walking to the car, feeling pretty good about the opportunity I just had. As I walked by a mausoleum there was a work crew putting on a new roof. I paused just long enough to hear what song was playing on their radio. and 'Let It Be' by the Beatles was just finishing up.