“Within the autumn forests, trees put on a final brilliant show of colours to brighten our days as the days shorten and sunlight fades”
–  Ed Lehming

Can you imagine an autumn without colour? An autumn where the days simply become darker and the leaves drop to the ground as dried green husks?

Thankfully, that is not the case and as days become shorter and the temperatures cool there is still the splendour of fall colours adding the illusion of warmth to otherwise dull and gray days. I can’t imagine it any other way.

Over the past many years, I have spent as much time as possible on the forest trails around my house. Every year seems to yield some new miracle of colour. This year has been no exception. Though I was tied up with my Studio Tour the bright, warm weekend when the colours were at their peak, I have since managed a few short outings to take in what remains, and have not been disappointed.

I faced many scenes like this one; mostly bare forest with incredible shows of dazzling oranges produced by the beech trees. In this case, the single beech among a grove of birch trees looked like a fire within their trunks and branches. The colour was so incredibly stunning that I was concerned it would not show in the photograph, but it did. I made the photo hoping to do the scene justice and when I looked at my phone, I knew I was successful. Yes, this photo was made using my iPhone and is pretty much untouched with the exception of a bit of sharpening and black point adjustment to maintain the contrast that makes it so stunning.

The nice thing about beech trees, which I have mentioned before, is that they retain their colour for much of the winter, offering bright patches of orange and copper in an otherwise bleak landscape.

iPhone 7 back camera @ 4.0mm
1/1000 sec; f/1.8; ISO 20

For more images like this, please visit my website (images are available for purchase)
http://www.edlehming.com