I just couldn't stop seeing them (Day 2)

I was out on the trail again Tuesday, not intending to do any photography because I'd done a lot the previous day. I did a post about it Monday. 

But lo and behold, I was only a few minutes into the walk when compositions came at me again. The sort that had drawn me into pulling out my iPhone 13 Pro to take pictures and kept me on the trail for an extra 35 minutes or so on my walk on Monday.

I present them in this post. For most of the course, I disciplined myself to make only images of lines, shadows, light and patterns (ignoring fallen leaves). But alas, by the middle and end of the walk, I buckled and took some fallen leaves shots, too. I even came across a rogue mushroom that resembled a white rose. 

I did Tuesday's stroll doing the usual distance on the Creekside Trail (2.5ish miles) and decided to also follow the Millpond Trail, adding another 0.6 miles to my distance, for a total of 3.11 miles. But to demonstrate how much more selective of my shots I was on Tuesday compared to Wednesday, I took only 1 hour and 22 minutes to cover the 3.1 miles; I needed an hour and a half to do 2.5ish miles Monday.  

On my initial draft of this post, I was going to lead off with the first picture below and bury at the bottom the photo you see in the lead-off position above. I worried that putting the abstract composition above (OK, OK ... in truth, it was a mistake shot) would undermine the integrity of the blog. What happened with that shot was ... I had moved the phone/camera horizontally not realizing I was simultaneously pressing a finger on the shutter button. But I loved the outcome; I'll be adding it to my abstract gallery at my online website. 

To view a full gallery of shots from Tuesday's outing, follow the link in this sentence. 

  

Check out my traveling photographer blog, Travelin’ Shutterbug

 

Official fallen leaves post for 2026

Sept. 7’s post here on fallen leaves was just a teaser for today’s post. 

Not that the fallen leaves you see here today are any better, bigger or more bizarre than those in the Sept. 7 post. But Sept. 7, you see, was technically still summer. The leaves in this post were photographed on Sept. 28, which is a full week into autumn 2026. 

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know I like to do annual posts on fallen leaves that I come across in my sundry pursuits. Consider this collection, all photographed at Yates Mill Pond Park in Wake County, N.C., this year’s installment. Enjoy.

To view a gallery of the full fallen leaves project for 2026, follow the link in this sentence. I'll warn you that most of the photos are already in this post. 

Check out my traveling photographer blog, Travelin’ Shutterbug