Yellow leaves, blue sky

click photo to enlarge
Autumn is a time of year when, depending on the turn that the weather takes, you can convince yourself that it's still summer or you find yourself lamenting the onset of winter. As I type this "reflection" the area of Lincolnshire in which I live has had a full day of light rain - the first such day for months - that brought with it thoughts of the darker, colder, shorter days to come.

However, two days earlier, when I took this photograph, the sun was shining on the brightly coloured leaves of the maples. As I looked up into a tree and framed this shot, full of bright yellow, deep blue and clear white it almost seemed like I was looking back into summer: only the slight edge on the wind and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet reminded me that it was definitely autumn.

The yellow/orange with blue of this image shows the power of complementary colours, each deepening the apparent hue of the other, and generating a vibrancy that has appealed to artists, photographers and designers down the centuries.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Leaves of spring

click photo to enlarge

In 1664, John Evelyn (1620-1706), the English gardener and writer, published "Silva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees". In this ground-breaking book, written to encourage the planting of trees to meet the ship-building needs of Britain's growing navy, he described the species found in the British Isles. He noted those that were native to the islands, and those that were introduced. One of the trees discussed by Evelyn is the sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus. There were relatively few of these trees at that time, and he correctly described them as an introduced variety. No one can be sure who first brought the sycamore to Britain. Perhaps it was the Romans, or maybe it was later travellers bringing seeds or saplings from its native home in south and central Europe. Whoever it was, they are responsible for a tree that is now widespread, one of the commonest trees in many parts of the country.

Acers, confusingly also known as maples, are widely used as a source of wood for flooring, furniture and joinery. Its white, clean wood is almost odour-free making it useful for jobs associated with food. The sap from the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) is tapped and made into a highly prized syrup. In Britain, though foresters see the sycamore as useful, it is also invasive and subject to control in some areas. However, gardeners love the acer and many varieties are cultivated for their distinctive and attractive leaf colours seen in spring and autumn. In my garden two acers are currently spreading their leaves: one a copper colour, the other a bright lime green, though today's photograph shows an orange variety that I came upon early one evening in a nearby cemetery! The blue sky proved to be the ideal complementary colour for the attractive foliage, and the shadows cast by higher leaves on those lower down added a further layer of interest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm macro (76mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off