Growth?

 

I'd been thinking about growth, this week's theme for the 52 Photos Project and didn't have any idea what I'd use. I found the skeletal leaf in this photo and did some work on trying to capture its unique beauty. I'm somewhat disappointed with the results.

But it was fun seeing how the afternoon sunlight made shadows and how those shadows changed when the sun went behind the clouds. I found myself standing around staring impatiently at the sun while waiting for the light to come back! I'd taken a bunch of pictures and had forgotten my camera was set on "RAW." I don't have a way of converting those photos so my computer can't open them at the moment. I changed the setting and went out to get more photos. The one above is one of the last things I tried. The leaf is resting on a background canvas that is covered in old dictionary pages and painted. It is sitting on the railing of my patio. The sun was shining down on my right side as I took the photo. This, to me, seems obvious here, but I have had to learn how to look to the shadows to find the direction of the light.

My first photo setting choice was on an old cedar stump that is a leftover from Hurricane Rita. The tree was blown over and we cut the stump but we never dug it completely out. Now a small oak tree is growing tenaciously up through a crack in the trunk. I'm waiting to see how that is going to work out for the oak tree!

The shadows seen in the photo are the shadows of the young oak tree that is growing through the dead cedar stump where the skeletal remains of the leaf are sitting. There is much pain and loss in life. And growth is sometimes a costly commodity but it is always worth the price of the ticket.