Big Lake, Minnesota.

Less than a week after the first day of autumn found us in Big Lake Minnesota at Lions Park for a Celebration of Life. As we awaited the start of the event, I happened to notice a row of evergreen trees, each with vines and small trees growing within the area at the base of each large evergreen.

It is an early fall color show going on in southern Minnesota right now. The trees in northern Minnesota aren’t so well colored, though they will probably be past color prime in another week or so. In any case, the autumn colors attracted my eye and I captured a few images hoping one might be worth sharing. I will leave that opinion to you, dear reader.

About the image: Captured on my Samsung S20U, I decided I wanted the composition to include the field in the background and chose to include the gap between the two trees yet leave the emphasis on the reds of the tree growing in the shadow of the larger evergreen. I used automatic exposure, the camera selecting f/1.8, 1/530 sec., ISO-16 for the numbers. As usual, I processed the image in Lightroom and Luminar 4. I was lucky to capture a partly cloudy sky. Within an hour or so, the sky became overcast and I would have missed the brighter colors enhanced by the sun at my back.

John Steiner