Learning to love the muted colors

Stump, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Log, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

For a long time I waited for the bright autumn leaf colors to come out. But that did not happen this year. What we got instead were greenish and yellowish colors at most, usually it was a sort of brownish.

Today I suddenly realized that it is actually quite beautiful. There were thick clouds, and the sun invisible and rather weak already, but there was a nice feeling to the landscape, of waiting, perhaps a bit like dreaming. And that was something you could try to catch in a photograph.

And this reminded me of my favorite photographer - Sam Abell. Many of his images contain this kind of muted light - muted but beautiful. As Abell has written, photography is about seeing, and about making photographs, not taking them.

Thus, one lesson learned, again. Never try to take photographs because what you are trying to see may not be there. Instead, see.

Here are two photographs from today, which I feel are not too bad. At least I was not trying to picture something which was not there.