Fallout

Pine and needles, Woodbury, Connecticut © Steven Willard

We get so caught up in fall colors it’s easy to overlook what else is going on. I followed Wally, my dog, who was interested in taking a different path than usual; no doubt he had caught the scent of a stranger, maybe a deer or a turkey, or maybe just a feral cat. At any rate, we were walking down a trail that wasn’t on our normal dog walk, when we came upon this pine tree standing in the middle of a bed of pine needles, unusual because the grounds grew hadn’t swept them up. They looked completely undisturbed.

It didn’t occur to me to make photograph at first. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine how to compose the subject, if there really was a subject. Here came Wally to the rescue. He found something he really liked the smell of and he wasn’t ready to leave. I was stuck there, waiting while Wally had his nose to the ground, so why not make an exposure? So that’s what I did; I made one exposure  standing where his leash allowed me to stand and he was ready. What a smart dog!

Panasonic Lumix G3 with 20mm f1.7 lens, processed in Photoshop CS4 using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and Color Efex Pro 4.