“As winter approaches, remnants and reminders of autumn persist, adding colour to the gradual toning down to winter whites.” – Ed Lehming

This image was a fortunate combination of two factors: convenient compositional angle and a very wide aperture on my new Iphone 12 Pro.

The compositional angle is due to me trying to get the cluster of leaves lined up to my satisfaction, which put all the stems behind the leaves which I wanted as my focal point. The aperture was a bit of a surprise. I’ve been playing with my new iPhone and it’s ‘portrait mode’ which allows me to create phone images with incredibly wide aperture for such a small device, rendering pretty much anything behind the subject as a soft blurred bokeh, including the stems the support the leaves. The effect is that the leaves seem suspended in the air against a very soft background.

My primary intent with this image was to capture those splashes of colour that remain into late fall, even after it has snowed. The colour is primarily orange or tones of yellow-orange from the many beech trees in my local forests. But, every now and then, a stubborn maple or oak has some colour to share as well, which was the case with this small bunch of maples leaves which caught the morning sun so nicely.

iPhone 12 Pro @ 6 mm
1/125 sec, f/2.0, ISO 25