A sweetgum leaf forms a curtain partly obscuring my way along Piney Woods Church Road.
Nov 082014
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.
Oct 312014
Today was overcast and breezy, not quite cold but suggesting a change in the air. It was late afternoon when I set out, and perhaps sixty degrees; tomorrow, the forecast calls for winds up to 35 mph and a high barely exceeding fifty. The tree leaves’ changing colors stood out magnificently against the gray sky. Here are two images of autumn splendor from the walk: the first is an impressionistic shot of the foliage of a sassafras tree along the road; the second, an image of three oak leaves and the spaces between (and within).
Oct 302014
With a yellow leaf as background, a muscadine vine twists back upon itself, evoking the inevitable return of Spring and then in time Autumn again.
