Hi Folks:  As I mentioned back in November, I thought  I’d dedicate the last day of each month to a ‘Photo of the Month’ page.  This has been a very busy month of writing and posting and holidays and family and… but I have managed to make a few photographs.  I’ve made more photographs this month than I’ve had a chance to run through Lightroom; truth be told I’m still processing LAST month’s images, but anyway.  Of the photographs I have processed, I had a few choices I was happy with.  But of all of the images I’ve made this month I wanted to dedicate this month’s ‘Photo of the Month’ page to an idea more than a specific photograph.  It’s a project idea I’ve been playing with for a few years now but never got around to… yeah, one of those.  This particular project I call ‘Leaf Shadows’.  When the leaves fall from the trees in the autumn, they cover the ground and line our streets and some of them at least fall on our sidewalks.  I’ve found that in the right conditions (I’ve asked, but Mother Nature isn’t sharing Her secrets), the rain leaches the tannins out of the leaves and ‘leaves’ behind an imprint of the leaf on the concrete.  I was out Christmas shopping in Langford a few days before Christmas and came across some wonderful impressions.  All I had with me was my walk-around camera, a Fuji FinePix S1500fd, and I didn’t have my tripod, but I made a few shots anyway.  I think they cover the concept pretty well, and I’ll take a more serious look at this idea, maybe next autumn.  Fortunately this whole leaves falling from the trees thing happens every year!  I’m going to post three of the images I made that day.  Of the three, the last one’s my favourite.  Different people see different things in them.  Are they in clouds?  Are they skeletons of leaves left behind? Are they stories unto themselves?  You decide…

Mike.

(click on the images for a larger view)