“It’s nearly mid-February, yet on the dullest days, bright orange beech leaves and the contrasting splendid whites of the birch, bring cheer to my days.” – Ed Lehming

In mid-winter, there are many places in the forest that become exceptionally drab and dull looking, lacking colour or interest. Thankfully, these places are offset by the beauty of the beech trees, which retain most of their leaves all winter long. Sure, some become bleached and diaphanous from the harsh winter environment, yet some stay bright orange or copper in colour until new spring buds force them off the branches.

There is also the brilliant white of the birch groves, which are found spread out through my region of Canada. I’ve come across some wonderful groves in the rolling hills of the moraines close to my home.

In this painterly interpretation? The beech and birch stand together along the trail, brightening the whole scene.

I decided to interpret this image the way I did simply because it pleased me. As I have noted in a few recent posts, I find myself wanting to extract more colour and softness from the image than the original yielded, so I extracted them in this manner.