Subtle: Two More Ways

Still curious and encouraged by a friend to see what the photo in the previous post would look like in monochromatic versions, I took it to Photoshop and produced a black-and-white copy, then one in sepia.

Desaturating the color alone did not produce the results above. I did that first but then also darkened highlights and lightened shadows -- before, of course, adding back in the warm tone in the second version here. 

Subtle

I'm a sucker for fog and also for old, twisted apple trees. Seeing this orchard tree against the backdrop of fog-softened birches at the edge of a small woods, I couldn't resist the shot. There so little color I considered taking it all out for a black-and-white or sepia tone, but in the end I left it alone. Don't know if it "works," but I like it.

Coffee Inside -- Outside, Snow

This was the view Sunday afternoon from Another Cuppa Joe at the Traverse City Commons, looking out on a snowy landscape.

Banded Landscape

Dark Sky, Sunlight on Water

Morning Spotlight on Harbor

Snow-Covered and Slippery

Reluctantly, we enter the annual zone of transition.

The look of the land has changed. We are edging into winter.

The water on Grand Traverse Bay looks colder, and the opposite shore is invisible, shrouded in mist and swirling snow.

A bit of warm brown hangs on in the woods, the ground is still green in the cherry orchards,

and certain apple orchards contribute spots of bright red to the scene.

As long as there is light, there will be color, even when a winter-weary spirit sees only stark black and white.

However you see the world in November, be careful on the roads!

Another Look (Altered Sky)

This Is November in the North

Fall's Many Faces

Is anyone ever impatient for the season's first frost? Probably not, and yet, when it comes, there is no denying its magic.  Every leaf, every seed pod, every blade of grass takes on a new identity, dressed in costume for an ice palace ball. And since we know that it isn't winter, and it isn't snow, we feel that once the sun rises high enough, the frost will disappear, and the now-beautiful will turn Cinderella-dowdy.

Here comes the sun! Dowdy? How could anyone forget for a minute the beauty returning autumn sunlight would bring to roadsides, orchard trees, and blue Lake Michigan? South Fox Island never looked as close as it seemed on this sunny fall day.

Rain returned in Tuesday, for Election Day, but it didn't keep voters from the polls in our township. I went to town early and found no waiting line at all. Light inside the firehall coming through the doors shone on red maple leaves plastered to the pavement, and the red maple on Mill Street, always at its brightest on the day we go to vote, did its part to add a festive air to the important day.

For November Color, Look to the Orchards