A sweetgum leaf forms a curtain partly obscuring my way along Piney Woods Church Road.
Nov 082014
Nov 072014
After 311 outings down Piney Woods Church Road this year, I will confess that, while each day ineluctably brings new wonders, some days are far more wondrous than others. There are days that I drag my feet, stop everywhere to look for something inviting to photograph, and still reach the far end of the road without a single photograph. Then, nearly desperate, I find something satisfying enough to be sufficient, and I hurry off home. There are other days, however, like today — days when everywhere I look there are new possibilities for the camera lens, new glimpses into nature’s riches just a short distance beyond my back door. Those are the days when I return home with 40, 60, 80 or more photographs, and I cannot choose between them all.
My late afternoon visit today was a magical autumn ramble. Everywhere I looked, the colors of the season blazed forth in all their glory.
Ready to greet me upon my arrival was this sassafras tree, on fire with shades of red, orange, and yellow.
Further down the road, a lone hickory still glowed with leaves of yellow-orange.
The late-day sun shone through strands of horsehair on a barbed wire fence along the roadway, beckoning me near.
Even a roadside grass long gone to seed seemed touched with glory.
Nearby, a backlit leaf of a white oak sapling nearly overwhelmed me with its brilliant colors.
Even a muscadine leaf — a subject of numerous photographs across the span of the year — was illuminated with such beauty that I simply had to take its picture yet again.
Perhaps the most amazing discovery of all was not a leaf, but an insect visitor. I was delighted to encounter this Buckeye (Junonia coenia) resting in the sunlight beside the road. For all the flowers that have bloomed over the past half-dozen months, this was the first Buckeye I have seen on my walk. And there was not a flower in sight!
Nov 072014
Along Piney Woods Church Road, the dogwoods have lost their leaves, and their berries have ripened to a brilliant red. Autum truly bestows us endless gifts of brilliant color. The blossoms may be practically gone, but leaves and berries grace us with shades of purple, red, orange, and yellow….
Nov 062014
It was another fairly warm and breezy sunny day, though weather forecasters predict an abrupt end to this halcyon Indian summer by the middle of next week. Meanwhile, I walked Piney Woods Church Road, finding delight in the passage of sunlight through the forest, and pausing to photograph a fallen star — a sweetgum leaf lying on the roadbed at Rico Road, where my daily pilgrimage begins and ends.
Nov 052014
I set out for Piney Woods Church a full hour short of what would be called sunset, if the sky hadn’t already been a darkening, leaden gray. The result of my journey is these two nearly monochromatic images, beautiful though in a somewhat bleak sort of way.
Nov 042014
On the same small roadside sweetgum sapling there were leaves that were still quite green, others that had turned a deep, nearly purple, shade of burgandy, and leaves like this one, mostly red with edges of yellow-green. This is the one time in the year when I appreciate sweetgum, even though it is the weediest tree in the Georgia Piedmont (or rather, is tied with loblolly pine for that distinction). But right now, as it turns an array of colors, I am grateful to encounter it on my daily Piney Woods Church Road walk.
Nov 032014
Early afternoon sunlight streams across the edge of a Redbud leaf along Piney Woods Church Road.
Nov 022014
In the mid to late afternoon, I wandered past a magnificent young hickory, leaves a radiant yellow-orange. After visiting with a neighbor, I passed again, to catch the late-day sun setting the leaves aflame.
Nov 012014
I stopped briefly along Piney Woods Church Road late this morning to snatch a few photographs. It was cold and blustery under cloudy skies. The temperature was somewhere in the low-to-mid 40s, and the gusts left my bare hands numb in only a couple of minutes. I was not tempted to linger long there. I noticed abundant windfall blanketing the roadway, including loblolly pine needles and cones. At a season of brilliant colors, I offer this photograph in appreciation of the tones and textures of the season, rendered in black and white.
