Today about midday I headed out with my camera to take in some color on my own street. I don’t live on a traditional street, I live on a CR – a County Road. It’s a four-mile stretch of unpaved road that weaves it’s way up to the top of Pine Mountain outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I’ve been watching the leaves change day by day – but leaving for work in the early morning and returning at dusk has given me few opportunities to capture the color during the week.
.
As I looked up today I was reminded of a professor I studied painting under in college. Rita Abbey – she was always talking about transparencies – layers of colors over other colors…
Layers that allowed you to see other colors through them. Although I saw her technique as something more graphic and abstract at the time, today I believe I saw it in nature…
Yellow hickories, backed up by red maples, layered over orange sassafras…
All of it looking so translucent over a perfectly clear Indian Summer sky…
In school I saw Rita’s technique as a way to make us dissect space and interpret it in a new way, and maybe it was…
But today I saw something beyond technique or exercise, I saw nature layered in a way that made solids look translucent. Light and shadow creating shapes superimposed over the surfaces of the leaves…
Today I saw a work of art as I looked up into the sky. All I had to do was to capture it inside a rectangle.
the eff stop 
Fall is my favourite season and you capture it so beautifully!
Thank you – Fall is the best!
One of the things I most love about leaves is that many are translucent and do wonderful things to light–especially layers of them. Thank you for teaching me about “transparencies”. I’ve most often noticed–and loved–them when combinations of sun and shadow filter through layers of green leaves creating a multitude of shades of green and a dappling on the ground. Your photos showed the effect with multiple colors and I really like them!
Rus
Thanks a lot Russ – shooting my street is an annual ritual for me. I always see something new. Last year I saw bursts of color this year transparencies. I’m falling in love with the shadows you see through the leaves this year.
Just beautiful. And I love the new masthead!
Thanks – the chrome dog seemed oddly out of place with my current subject matter:)
What a beautiful sun dappled pic of your road! Just can’t believe we have had such a gorgeous fall – thanks for sharing all your wonderful photos! K
I know – who would have guessed. I’m so glad we got the color. Thanks. Lorri
Funny, there’s a Pine Mountain near where my dad lives. I love these kinds of roads. Your photos remind me of a place in Virginia called Smith Mountain Lake. Indian Summer there was spectacular. Actually any time of year there is pretty special. đŸ™‚
I live at the top of Pine Mountain just across the hollow from Oak Hill. The hills all seem to be named for trees and the hollows have family names. My mom was a Virginian – gorgeous country.
beautiful.
Thank you!
Yes, Stunning colour.
………and what a lovely place to live – I’m envious.
I wish I could have seen this mountain before the tall trees were logged – your post the other day made me think about that.
My day up in the mountains made ME think about logging too, Lorri.
I’ll be adding my signature to ‘anti-logging’ protests now. We’ve got to save these wonderful forests and flora and fauna (if the world is to survive).
I am surprised, as I look at this abundance of trees, that this forest is less than a century old. I would love to have seen it then, but seeing it now gives me hope. Most of my lane is in a land trust now – never to be logged again.
Transparencies, layers, color over colors, you got it today for sure. These are stunning, good job!
Thanks Allan!
Reblogged this on emocrippled.