Fallen Leaf Prints
Autumn fells the dying leaf
With no life left to speak
Colours flash and fade
Dropping down to decay
Bleeding temporal stains
Outlining their remains.
Heavy rainstorm winding wind through colour blushed leaves in darkness until the sun slashed it away in mid-day. Inner nudges to go out and shoot. I don’t want to. I’m not there in my mind. Don’t want to be shutter dancing with the camera. I procrastinate. I delay. Not today, now go away.
Lately, it’s been not so easy to be creative and most especially to write. The words aren’t there. What can I say? What can I say that isn’t going to offend someone? Recently managed to offend six people in a single week. Haven't hit that record in quite a while. It’s far easier to remain silent most of the time. Then I get stuck. Then I realize how many times I’ve put all kinds of parts of me up on the chopping block for creative fodder. All this creative energy I have has to have an outlet. I need that like I need to breathe.
Still don’t want to go out. The nudges have become an annoying nag. Fine. I’ll take the gear and go. I don’t care about capturing anything. I’m just in that kind of mood. A walk is always a plus though.
I headed off to one of my favourite haunts. Not going to say where. That’s for the next post. Despite being in a complete creative disconnect, I snagged some really satisfying shots. Something shifted. I shifted. It altered my day in the very best way.
On my way home, I walked along a stretch of newly cured concrete sidewalk. Fresh. Great texture. Not city sludge gray-brownified yet. The wind had whipped all these leaves loose from the trees, scattered wet and rotting, like sins on the sidewalk of life.
Anything in a state of change fascinates me. Anything in a state of decay is especially appealing. This moment of change is something I’ve spent my entire life trying to capture, knowing full well that it is a futile pursuit, forever elusive. I like the chase. I like to freeze frame specific moments. Change always occurs by increments, even if it outward appearances seem otherwise. Outward appearances are deceptive by nature.
Years ago, I noticed how autumn leaves create imprints of themselves where they’ve fallen as they decay in the elements. Leaf fall combined with a lot of rainfall and some compressions seem to be the ideal conditions for this to happen. Newer concrete gives much more contrast for leaf prints.
These small aspects of life often go unnoticed, but are the very things that often catch my eye. Subtle, silent, beautiful art created by nature underfoot.
I have tried and failed to capture these kind of leaf prints prior to this occasion. I was dog tired, shutter played out, and on my way home. Full stop on catching sight of all these leaf patterns.
Camera out. Lens change. Dying light conditions. Shot them anyway. These ones didn’t go astray fading away, mostly blending with the sidewalk, like my previous attempts.
If I’d stayed in my funk and didn’t go out lens eyeballing, I would have missed this. I also would have missed shooting six hundred photos, of which, I’m having a hard time deciding what ones to trash. Too many good shots beyond what is typical of a shoot for me. Sometimes I just need that internal nudge to move me in the right direction, keeping me from going astray.
All photos taken by Nine with a Pentax digital 35mm camera.