Itching for fall

[dchew]

Took this this morning. Not the best, but I'm posting this for three reasons:

1.  I'm excited about fall just around the corner here in Northeast Ohio.  Nowhere near peak color, but signs of things to come...
2.  It's been quite dry here, and we finally got some rain last night (hence the very dark trunk) so I'm celebrating "The Wet."
3.  I'm testing Mike's quote of Jean Cooke:  "If your mind is attuned to beauty, you find beauty in everything."

Is the quote true even for poison ivy?

I also got my Nat'l Geo yesterday, with an article about Redwoods along with a multi-fold image of a very tall tree, so I had vertical on the brain.

[attachment=16842:DChew_090927_0010.jpg]

Dave

[wolfnowl]

Looks beautiful to me!  For a plant that has an oil on its leaves that causes allergic reactions in some humans, poison ivy certainly gets a bad rap!  Ruffed grouse do love the berries, though.  I find it a little harder to find Devil's Club beautiful, but that's because my first introduction to it was in reaching out to something to stop me from sliding down the side of a mountain, and was followed that evening by three hours of pulling little tiny thorns out of my hand.

Mike.

[John R]

It looks good to me. And the line of leaves is a wonderful snaky movement.

JMR

[francois]

Dave,
It's a very pleasing photo (both colors and lines), I wouldn't change anything!

[jasonrandolph]

Don't sell yourself short; I really like it.  You captured the beauty and mood of the moment, and that is a successful photograph.

[dchew]

Thanks for the comments.  I was skeptical of this photo because this was one of those situations where I see something in the woods that really gets my attention, then when I go back to photograph it I just can't portray the impact it had.  I tried versions that included more context as well as tighter compositions.  This trunk really stood out visually, but my compositions with more context just got too busy.  Photographs in deciduous forests are difficult for me because so much is going on; it's hard to isolate things.  I think Elliot Porter, however, was a master at this.  

Dave