Autumn Explosion

It's autumn! The most colorful season of the year, at least in our part of the world. And I can never get enough of it, so I decided to give nature's palette a little boost.

"Autumn Explosion" isn't just some random name, by the way. It's a preset in Luminar Neo from Skylum ‒ software designed for quick photo edits ‒ and in this case, it's perfect for capturing that fall vibe.

I was shooting Sunday afternoon in the city park. Clear, sunny day, but the sun was already getting low on the horizon. Which works great for lighting ‒ way better than that harsh midday glare.

The Sunday afternoon also brought out plenty of people. Moms with strollers, elderly folks out for a walk with their canes. So whenever I wanted a shot without anyone in the frame, I'd usually get maybe a few seconds before someone wandered into it. But that's just part of the job.

I once read in a discussion group that shooting park benches is tacky as hell. You think so too? Honestly, I couldn't care less. The whole point of artistic photography is to stir something up in people. And if my photos tick someone off because they think I'm polluting everyone's taste with clichés, well, that's emotion too. So in the end, everything's working out fine.

I was shooting in that low afternoon sun. And when you've got light like that, backlighting practically shoots itself. The multicolored leaves ‒ yellows, oranges, greens ‒ some translucent, some opaque ‒ created this really interesting effect.

Like I said, with artistic photography, it's not about capturing reality as it is—it's about the impression you create in the viewer's mind. So editing in post is part of the whole vision.

Here you can see the before and after ‒ the original straight out of the camera and what I did with it. Is it too much? So be it.

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I also shot some close-up detail shots. With these, though, I went easy on the editing and just let the fall colors speak for themselves ‒ the way they actually were. A botanist would tell you that shorter days and cooler temps break down the green chlorophyll, which reveals the yellow and orange pigments called carotenoids that were always there in the leaves but got hidden under all that green during summer. So leaves don't lose their color in autumn ‒ they finally get to show the colors they were meant to have all along.