Autumn Pastels: Mistify the Colours

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.
Rumi.

Among the many phenomena we encounter in the autumn, the fog, the mist, the dampness, the late autumn hoarfrost, forgotten, shall we say, aspects by the arch-complicated mind of the post-modern townsman (of an icebergian depth, where he lives solely on top of it) are manifestations of recalling of the essences of the within of the plants, especially the trees, that are preparing for a cold and wet season.

I walk on this damp autumn earth just to feel its softness caused by impregnating it with water. So it began to rain and the rain connected the heaven and the earth with thin threads which were the raindrops.

I came across, by chance, these leaves, among which there was one that drew my attention, of a red so lit up that it was glistening wet from the autumn rain. Usually, I don’t like looking down, because I figured I don’t see anything beautiful and this act of looking down sounds to me like lack of hope, an irremediable sadness (like in the Rhapsody of Autumn, by Topârceanu) and half-heartedness, a terrible entropy of the soul, unseen by now and even the skies might wonder. Nevertheless.. let’s not exaggerate!

However, I did see something beautiful by looking down, on the earth, but know this that I was looking for it and found it: the beautiful befallen from the tree.

Someone told me one day: “the leaves of trees fall during autumn, decompose by spring and their parents, the trees do not care”. I will poetically contradict this affirmation by saying that yes, they do care. They are rainbowish tears of the forests. Where there is no rainbow, there are no tears. Have you seen how children cringe when they cry, how they sag and become little? The same happens to trees whey they retreat their essence in themselves. The rest is befalling.

The best weather for photography is not necessarily, and of course, the weather with clear blue sky, a strong sunlight, a terrestrial atmosphere that stirs joy, gladness, both emotional and of the physical senses, but rather a foggy atmosphered one, with clouds, rain, low light, somewhere in the forest, in autumn, or in a meadow such as this, on roads crossed only by sheep, goats, cows, horses and carriages, by the local people etc.

Fog, as well as rain, gives the atmosphere that mystery we all look for in photography. I will begin a new part of the Autumn Pastels album and I will call it Mistifique.

I don’t want to mistify anything. I just want to play with this concept in the photographical composition, and with that of the mysterious atmosphere. I will also seek to mix the other compositional recipes in this play.

Juxtaposition is another recipe of composition, along with the diagonal lines. But what about the central subject? Does it need to be put in the center? Both yes and no. There isn’t a strict rule about this. Everyone composes one’s own message as they know best, provided it is clear.

Have you ever wondered what is the real face of autumn? The yellow leaf? The trees devoid of leaves? The multitude of colors the leaves have during this time of year? The leaf itself or something else? I think it’s the atmosphere. I will not mistify this nor will I reveal it totally. I cannot. Anyway, it can be clearly read westernly, the elements of the image appearing in order from left to right.

There have been pauses, just enough to admire again the plum trees whose trunks are covered with lichen as if they were a dancing choir of abundant symbiosis.

After wandering, my feet carried me back through the meadows to the guiding road. It began to rain again. There have been reprises, showers, as some may say. But I found a magnificent subject to photograph, at the shelter of its own huge branches: the centennial linden that I baptized Gelu (for, in those places, there are three such trees so old, they reminded me of the three knezes of Transylvania: Glad, Gelu and Menumorut). There are the other two linden trees I named Glad and Menumorut (the latter being the thickest, the oldest, almost twice in thickness than the one I will show you below).

Beeches and fog get along, painterly speaking, really well. They remind me of the autumn chinese paintings depicting Hunan Valley, in China.

I literally photographed in the rain and mist. I never thought that I will have so many subjects to photograph, so many photographically valuable moments in a place I have been in several different ocasions than these. The worst weather for hiking is actually the best weather to photograph.

The mysterious becomes so occult and at the same time so visible, in-your-face, that I have nothing to mistify in order to give it meaning. The photographs speak for themselves.