(see the full-size close-up below)

One year north Florida had a spectacular leaf change. Fall foliage looked as though graffiti artists had run amuck in the woodlands. When the leaves fell, I collected a selection and deposited them on the surface of a tiny goldfish pond I had made in my backyard. I had built it with water-contoured limestone river rocks in a small free-form fiberglass container sunk into the ground. The pool was only about 20x30 inches in size. What made it perfect for photographing was the fact that a Japanese Magnolia tree shaded it. That meant no glittery sky reflections in the water.

With my 35mm camera on a tripod looking down on it, I made the arrangement I liked and shot color transparencies of the scene. These slides turned out fine, giving me a nice collage of brightly colored fall foliage.

Eventually I wondered just how abstract I could go with these colors and shapes. The procedure started with scanning the original transparency into a high definition graphic for my computer. Using tools in Photoshop, I set about trying a variety of effects. The final graphic has had many different treatments. I worked and re-worked it until I arrived at the image I wanted. The high magnification of the largest print size will show you the detail achieved in this colorful image. Again, this abstract of fall colors makes for an exciting collage fulfilling all the values of abstract art. One can enjoy it horizontally, vertically or upside down for continued interesting variety.

This is a close-up image from the full-size print, showing the detail involved