Fall is my favorite season for photography.  Seeing reds, oranges, and yellows against a royal blue sky transports me.  Capturing such a scene was my goal for the day.  The trees were cooperating nicely, but the weather had different plans.  In frustration over the uncooperative weather, I retreated to one of my favorite locations in the local canyon and decided to walk around a bit and clear my head.  Just two years prior, I had had my epiphany that there was much to appreciate in a pile of dead leaves.  Although it wasn’t what I was after, I quickly found that the “uncooperative” weather had produced ideal conditions for the carpet of newly fallen leaves.  The flat lighting helped manage the contrast.  The water on these rain-soaked leaves produced a wonderful saturation of the colors as well as an occasional specular highlight.  I never did capture my goal image during that Fall, but I ended up with an image which (unexpectedly) has been every bit as satisfying to me.

 

If there is a moral in this story, it would be to view unexpected (uncooperative) conditions as thinly veiled opportunities.  It is good to have goals for a photographic outing, but be flexible — keep your eyes and mind open.  Whether or not you accomplish your goals, you may find that serendipity hands you a great photographic opportunity that  lies outside of your goals.

 

To capture this image, I used a tripod for two reasons: (1) to allow for a longer exposure in the dim light with a smaller aperture, and (2) to keep the subject-to-camera distance fixed in order to preserve critical focus.  I used a 100mm macro lens affixed to a Canon EOS 1v-HS film camera, and exposed Fuji Provia 100F film which was later scanned on a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 film scanner.