In Your Own Backyard
Technically we don’t have a backyard. We live in an apartment complex and have a back patio. Beyond the patio is a narrow area of grass and then a privacy fence. Beyond the fence there is a vacant field and a wooded area on two sides of that field.
The image that I posted this week for the 52 Week Art Challenge (Theme: The World Outside) was a photograph of an American Sycamore tree that grows along the wooded area at the end of the vacant field beyond the privacy fence. I had previously posted a photograph of that tree with snow covering its branches. This week the tree’s leaves had turned yellow and reddish orange as the cooler weather brought fall colors to many trees and shrubs in the area.
One of the meteorologists on the weather channel had stated that the fall colors in New England were muted this year. People who planned their vacation to view or photograph New England’s famous autumn foliage were disappointed that the changing leaves were not a brilliant show this year.
We found muted colors among the mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina last week, too. A trip to visit family took us up and over the Appalachian Mountain range in those states and although trees were sporting fall colors the hues were muted rather than the usual bright shades. Like those vacationers in New England I had hoped to capture many photographs of trees full of brilliantly colored leaves.
Once again, as is true very often in life, I only had to look in my own backyard (poetically speaking) to find brilliantly colored leaves on an American Sycamore tree!
How often have you searched far and wide for beauty or excitement to end up finding what you were looking for right in your own backyard?
Please feel free to share that experience in the comment section below.
Click here for a full size image of today’s featured photograph.
