I continue to be engaged with our back yard and the woods beyond the lawn.  Skeletal trees are visually interesting and always worth looking at for me. Here are several from this past week.

Tomorrow is Halloween.  I made this photograph a few years ago with Halloween in mind, but never posted it for that purpose. When I first saw the tree, there as a buzzard on it which was over the top cool, but before I could make the shot, it flew away. I still think it's pretty spooky even without the buzzard.  Now I've cropped it a bit and added the greeting. So, go scare yourself! ;)

I keep coming back to the trees behind our house because they continue to fascinate me.  The entire forest in which they live is difficult to photograph, but I continue to try.  Here are two from today, October 11th.

It has been quite a while since I've posted anything here that wasn't close to home...ridiculous gas prices and such. But, yesterday, I couldn't wait  any longer for some fresh scenery and drove to Cedar Point Preserve where I've found inspiration before.  Here are seven new images taken there. 

I have taken far too many pictures of this backyard tree, but I will post at least this one anyway...and more to come too perhaps.  The other is at the entrance to this community...it's a sometime school bus stop shelter and quiet place to view the mitigation pond. 

Although I've found it worthwhile to take photographs at home, I decided to make a trip with the camera yesterday despite the price of gas. Cedar Point has usually been rewarding, and I thought I knew what to expect, but I discovered a part of it I had not explored before and took these images. 

Gas is now up to $4.39 so I'm still milking our backyard for whatever else I can  These several photographs were taken in the evening around 6:30 or so.  I don't usually miss color, but the light was soooo warm and soft that I cranked up the sepia more than I usually ever do. It's not the same, but I think it does suggest a degree of that warmth. UPDATE - GAS IS NOW 4.59 PER GALLON, UP .20 SINCE JUST YESTERDAY!!!!

When you see the same view every day, it either gets boring or more interesting. To me, our woodsy backyard is repeatedly interesting as the light and values of the leaves continually change.  Here are two more from May 1st. 

Once again, our back woods looked good in the late afternoon around sixish or so. I also discovered how effective a K2 filter is as it's a bit flattering to the early spring foliage. 

I visited a small state park today that I had forgotten I'd visited once before. It's in a particularly affluent area bordering the St. Johns River. The water lilies are abundant and very healthy looking....and the yachts are too!  😉

With gas being a lot more expensive lately, I've been reluctant to travel much at all hence the photographs of our backyard.  But, for the moment, gas is a bit cheaper so yesterday I drove to an area that has been visually fruitful for me and made these images.  

Our backyard continues to interest me as I photographed it yesterday. My color perception limitations are generally mitigated by photographing in monochrome, but using various color contrast filters is still a challenge.  These images were all made with a green #11 filter.  It's also important to note that this is not some wilderness scene, but rather our immediate backyard so I chose not to remove the fence or sprinkler heads... 'it is what it is' reflects my attitude about including those non natural elements since they were there. 

Our backyard offers a forest view that is often very interesting.  It has been leafing out these past few weeks, and has been subtly colorful. These images were made with three color filters...a K2, Deep Yellow, and Orange. I did not write down what I was doing, so I'm not sure which is which now, but 'post processing' allows them all to be acceptable.  I think the K2 produced the least separation, the deep yellow a bit more, and the Orange the most. 

These are some of the newest photographs I've made with an orange filter. Three of them are of a palm tree and the pine trees beside our house, and the fourth is from the beach at Little Talbot Island SP.