Leaves

This week's theme is leaves. Leaves influence our everyday lives. You see leaves can be found pretty much everywhere. In fact, Ah, nevermind. I'm stationed in New York. The whole thing is a moot point for me. There hasn't been vegetation here since Harrison was President. Moving on. This first picture has a couple of elements that I really like. Firstly, the two bleak colors, Brown and Gray; and the loneliness of the leaf. I think both factors play a role in setting up the base of the picture. Additionally, this being Autumn and all there's that whole symbolic theme as well. The dying plants and dreary skies. This picture almost encapsulates the season by itself. The dead, fallen leaf, all alone, backdropped by a bleak slate of gray. The long and cold winter has not set in yet, but the leaf is almost completely gone, a couple more weeks, and it will all be over. Autumn signifies the eminent death, Spring symbolizes hope; it's even in Pope's quip, "Hope springs eternal" (Any English people in the crowd? You know you're a lost cause when you make puns about 17th century British literature).
Besides the colors and leaf placement, there are some other things that I think create big impacts. One, in the back of the picture you'll notice some big cracks in the pavement. I have no idea what effect this has to the picture, but I feel like it has more than a little impact. Two, the shadow underneath the leaf is obviously a major factor, but there are other shadows laying across the picture. I think this becomes interesting as well because it forces the "what's outside the picture" issue. Third, the lighting and shades of coloring attract attention as well. The shadows are the cause of some of the different shades of color, however without me explaining that they were shadows, it would be a left up to the observer to wonder what the discoloration was. Case in point, the foreground is darker and I don't think it has anything to do with the shadows.

This picture is in total contrast to the previous picture. The color is vibrant. I like how there are only the two colors. It has such a magnificent beauty, yet it is somewhat simple. The two colors provide all the life, yet they provide so much life. There is no sign of Autumn here, this picture could be taken in mid-summer or spring. To come clean, this picture is not completely real. I don't mean I doctored it, I mean I took it in a corporate parking lot. As always, the money makers of the country try to find the best selling season of the year, and exploit it for 12 months. Apparently, the book store involved here feels that summer or spring gets people to purchase books and coffee. "Corporate America: destroying one natural feel good moment at a time."




These pictures are great. First off, I gotta say I love a nice rain. Not torrential flooding/goodbye house rain; but a nice thunderstorm, a hard rain, a drizzle, a mist, whatever I don't care, rain rocks. I like the smell of it, the sound, the feeling, all of it. Anyway, seeing a drop of rain, or any liquid for that matter always seemed cool to me. The solitary drop of moisture. So to see and capture the drops of rain on the leaves is great for me. The bigger picture especially is cool, because it has that pool on the bottom of the leaf. The fragility of the whole thing is really amazing. That drop fell thousands of feet and landed on the leaf, yet by breathing to hard next to it, it'll roll down the leaf and join in with another drop or two, and if the momentum is too strong that big new drop will roll right off. Maybe that's what I like so much about the drops of rain on the leaves, it symbolizes a sense of delicate innocence. So fragile, so natural, so serene. This is the part of the nature video where the narrator gets quiet, a predator flies out of no where chomps down hard, maims the baby, crushes its head, and drags it back to the den for dinner, while the monotone voiceover speaks about a statistical anomaly and the exacting forces that run this ecosystem. Whatever nature man. Let me ogle at the baby elephant in peace. Save the lion hunt for HBO. Sadist.