Sometimes it needs a kick from someone else to realize the potential a photo may have (or may not have) and to make us thinking about it a little more. Since four years I publish every week a photo in a gallery called “20XX - 52 WEEKS” over in my web gallery at www.pbase.com/deadmoon . I’m a little behind at the moment and just posted the image for the 45th week, which was in early November. It was the photo above and It was the only image I thought it was worth to publish for this particular week, However, it got immediately a couple comments on the website. I actually thought the photo wasn’t that great because the wind moved the leaves and therefor it lacks a little detail, but it is the lines of the tree trunks, the golden fall colors of the leaves, and the light in general that make it obviously acceptable. I’m very thankful for the comments on that photo, not just because they were positive, but they made me thinking about that day again and the circumstances that made me push the shutter release button.
It was probably the only day during 2013 to make this photo the way it is. The location is a campground near Bellevue, Iowa that is located right along the Mississippi River. The campground hasn’t been open all year long because it got flooded earlier this year and the ground was covered with an ugly layer of mud. The days before this photo was made the temperature dropped into the freezing zone at night and as a result all the trees, mostly maples, started to get rid of their leaves and covered the mud completely.
I like if an image tells a story by itself, but sometimes there is a little background story that can’t be told by the picture but that makes the circumstances of its making memorable. I hope you enjoy…