The highlights of autumn in Japan are undoubtably the Ginkgo leaf which turns a brilliant yellow, and the Japanese Maple leaf, which turns a rich red. Everyone has their preference. I tend to prefer the Japanese maple. But when you combine the two of them… Well, it’s hard to compete with that.
Many people process their photos in order. That is, last week’s shoot, yesterday’s shoot, today’s shoot — as the take them, basically. I do it a little differently. I long ago adopted Trey Ratcliff’s processing method of randomly picking images from past shoots to edit, rather than editing shoots in any linear fashion. It always kind of made sense to me.. that way I don’t bore people by posting all my x photos at once, nor do I bore myself by processing them all at once.
To me, the best autumn weather is after a good rain, when it is still a bit dark and overcast. It may not be height and cheerful, but autumn isn’t suppose to be bright. Bonus: no wind. Makes photos easier.
Leaving the tea house, one is greeted with this scene. I’ve been invited to a full tea ceremony at this place twice during different autumns. Always a magical experience.
I came to this shrine this past autumn to take photos of the maple leaves, but these ginkgo ones stole the show. They were covering the ground everywhere. It made for a really nice scene.
This part of the Oto River is lined with these steps. They make for a good place to rest and enjoy the weather on nice days. Here, late in the autumn, the leaves were enjoying resting on them.
This is a nice area at any time of year, but especially so in the autumn and spring when you have either fall leaves or cherry blossoms to look at. The empty patch you see on the left of the photo is the corner of the rock garden, by the way. They don’t rake it as often as the ones in Kyoto, so it often looks like a mess, but you know… still a rock garden.
Having grown up in a place without a river (well, we had one, but truthfully it could barely be called even a creek) I am always drawn to the Oto River and find myself walking along it frequently. Here is a shot from along side it that I took a few months ago when the leaves were just starting to change. I added some textures to make it a bit more interesting.
