lacy maple leaves

Inspired by fall, I decided to try some things out with the burgundy lacy maple leaves in my yard. I planted the tree about 3 years ago, when the winter storms took out 2 apple trees and left a big hole in the sunny back part. This year, the tree is big enough, and has enough branches and leaves, that I didn't feel guilty cutting some off before they fell.

I clipped a small branch so that I got several leaves because I wanted to try and get some depth and layering of the leaves. Some went into glycerin, and in a few days, I'll see how well that works for saving them for me to play with throughout the winter. Here's a black&white scan done on my epson cx3810. I liked the shading I got. I had to play with the settings to get it to show at all. This was annoying since the b&w copy came out great. Not sure why the difference. I suspect I have a lot to learn about how my scanner works and how to manipulate it.



Here's the same layout on the scanner in color. It looked much better on the screen when I was scanning it because the horizontal lines didn't show there.

And here's a photo I took, using macro lens, sidelit by the table light I use while sewing. I taped the leaves to the top of the lid on the printer because of the white background in the lid. I'll be manipulating this in photoshop, and seeing how many different things I can do with it. I particularly like the shadow behind the leaves from the side lighting.



I love these leaves, and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to capture the contrast between them and the gray rainy fall days when the burgundy pops out at us even with the other fall colors. There's been a piece, or more than one actually, brewing for years. I think this might be the year they happen. More pictures later, as things mature.