Late in the year, I mean. We’re hurtling toward the solstice and the photon flow in the short hours between official sunup and sundown hardly qualifies as “daylight”. But when the Pacific Northwest cloud and rain and fog let up, the always-slanting sun is very pure.

Which I plan to salute but then disrespect via whimsical photomanipulation. Not apologizing either.

What happened was, I ran a few neighborhood errands in the rare November clarity and then there was this tree.

That’s about how it looked.

[Narrator: Enter Lighroom.]

But here’s the thing. That torrent of autumnal yellow is cool and I liked it, but I thought, well, maybe I could do something with that; good raw material! Say, turn it down a bit so the color is speaking not shouting.

And yes, I liked that color and thought it freed up the tree’s shape.

And the sky looks nice too but I think also distracting..

The observant reader will have noticed that I was walking round the tree pointing my phone at it, which all the strangers who noticed smiled and nodded at, because those leaves.

Anyhow, subtracting color seemed to be going in a good direction, so why not Go All The Way?

Look at the right edge of the photo, there’s a B&W bird! If you believe shape and contrast are the most important things about a picture, this one subtracts everything else.

I think I’ve done enough to that poor tree. Just a little later, I pointed the lens (by the way everything here is Pixel 7) at the sidewalk just in front of my feet.

Those would be oak leaves.

Winter sucks and there’s plenty of it incoming. It will however not be entirely free of light, so keep your eyes open.