Dappled lighting from late afternoon sun

Late last Tuesday afternoon, I was out surveying my yard in the wake of Winter Storm Diego's recent visit to the Carolinas when I was struck by the dramatic light and/or shadow patterns cast on my lawn and driveway from the low-in-the-sky sunlight being filtered by tree trunks and branches sprinkled throughout the landscape.

I think the appropriate term for the light I was drawn to is "dappled."

I reached for my iPhone and started taking pictures of all the dappled lighting that I found interesting. When I pulled up the images on my desktop computer Wednesday morning, I worked to crop several of them to focus on just the areas that had grabbed my attention to see if doing so would make a difference in an image's impact.

An example is the photo leading off the post, which is how it came out of the camera (phone?). I later cropped it to what appears immediately below. Do you think the crop did much to change the image's impact?

Personally, I think it did a little. I don't think it's the best example of what I was looking for, though. I think the next two "before and after" photos are a little better. In this case, the original gives me an idea where the thin-lined shadows are coming from, and having those provides an interesting contrast to the bright snow the shadows are cast upon. But the cropped version makes the shadows the whole pictures, and I like the mystery of not knowing the source.

An even better example, I thought, were the next two "before and after" photos below. The crop was so dramatic, in fact, that I was able to take the composition from a vertical orientation to that of a horizontal. And in this case, I think the cropped version delivers significantly more impact because I think there is great intrigue from the unusual shadow formations ... and a viewer will spend time trying to figure out what would cause those patterns ... and the odd, curved and bent item in the upper right.

Here is one more "before and after" crop example where, I think, a crop did change the impact. This time, I narrowed the width of a vertical orientation composition, mostly to remove possible distracting elements on the left side to leave little doubt that my intent was to make the splash of filtered light the focus of the composition:

My pursuit of dappled lighting wasn't all about trying to crop images in post-processing. What follows below are examples of compositions I left either in their entirety or with very minor trims. (By the way, in North Carolina we still have autumn leaves falling to the ground, and we'll continue to see them through January). I took loose liberties with skewing my angles on these shots, so don't fret if you see a background horizontal line that doesn't line up straight as an arrow. Regarding the fifth photo down ... I was taken by the textured feel of the leaves and leaf stems, a couple splotches of snow and two shades of pavement underneath those -- the small dry patches in the center and the still-damp portions surrounding it.

As always, if you'd like to see a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device.

Closeups of Christmas tree ornaments

Sometimes, when a photographer examines something long enough, a bulb with an idea light goes on. That's how this post evolved.

We have two artificial Christmas trees set up in our house. One is traditional and average size with short green pine needles.

The other is white (see photo above), and smaller and thinner than the other. It stands out when lit up in the corner of our sun room. I'll often pause to take it in from afar as it catches my eye when I'm walking about. Two days ago, I decided to do more than just let it catch my eye. I walked over to it and studied the decorations.

This tree is Lea's, Lee Ann's daughter. Lea studied Japanese in high school and college. She spent a year of her college time in Japan, so she has taken a liking to its culture. She decorated her tree with ornaments flavored in Japanese culture and items representing her favorite Disney characters..

I started taking closeup pictures of the ornaments, and when I finished, I went over to the other tree and did the same.

The pictures you see in this post is from that shoot.

Photo geek stuff: All of the images -- except the one of the green tree -- were taken with my Canon 6D and Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. I bracketed each for three exposures to enable melding those exposures into one high-dynamic range (HDR) image using Photomatix software in post-processing. The green tree image was taken with my iPhone X.

Autumn pear tree leaves of many colors

While on a brisk walk two weeks ago or so, I came upon a series of trees whose white flowers had caught my attention several months ago while I was doing a spring blooms shoot.

Now these trees' leaves were just past their autumn prime, and from afar they looked mostly orange to me. But as I came closer, the leaves actually were of different colors -- reds, oranges, yellows ... and even a very dark burgundy.

I was intrigued, so I took a bunch of pictures with my iPhone. There were a few individual leaves on the pavement next to the tree that jumped out at me, too ... because their color(s) stood out from all the other leaves around them. A friend of mine who I showed these pictures to help identify the source tree believes they are from a Bradford pear tree, also known as a flower pear tree.

I did one thing different in this post than I have done in the past. I made no edits on these photos; they're right out of the phone. Ordinarily I try to sharpen my images before posting, but I didn't do so this time.

One post planning note: Since I started composing this post two weeks ago, the landscape around us has changed dramatically: We had two days of snow from Winter Storm Diego, a couple days of rain that washed away all of the snow, and a couple days of upper 50s temperatures.

There's little else to say about this post, so I'll just get right to the pictures, starting below with a shot of the source trees from a distance. As always, to bring up a larger version of a photo, simply click on it. That's particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device.