While looking through photos on the computer, I realized that I have often taken pictures of a single leaf. Usually when they look lonely – half buried under snow, dangling from a spider web, or blown off the tree to be covered with dew drops in the grass.
That’s the joy of photography – I see beauty in just an ordinary old leaf. That’s the problem with photography – I see beauty in the shape, color, texture, and the patterns of decay in every leaf, and I want to capture every one of them in a photograph before they crumble away and disappear.
This oak leaf is hanging on for dear life. It is left over from last year – it is dried up and withered. The fern is just emerging and full of life, carrying the old oak leaf upward with it as it grows.
I like to find surprises like this one – a beautiful little leaf nestled in the center of a manhole in the middle of the street. It will likely fly away when the next set of truck wheels roll over it.
A fallen maple leaf has found a peaceful place to wither and die among the broken glass and snow showers in a decaying silk mill.
One of my favorites taken by Jim – he found this little leaf frozen on the river, draped by beautiful flowing ice patterns.
Here are more leaves that I have stopped to photograph along with a few of Jim’s. And I am sure I have more somewhere in my archives. And likely more to come. Do you think I have a problem?
