Faux Foliage

— About ten days ago I took a walk at Copperfield Nature Trail, just about 0.8 miles (1.24 km) from our house. My intent was to look for wildflowers blooming at this time of the year. Right at the entrance of the trail, the sidewalk has a variety of native plants. One or the other is always blooming. Although there were several flowers, my surprise was when I hiked down the trail towards Walnut Creek. I did not expect to see much water since we have not had much rain.

My surprise was when I spotted the scene above. I decided to call it faux foliage because what you see is not really a result of fall colors yet. Some leaves had fallen from those trees and created this artificial, make-believe scene. The Sun was shining in some areas and produced more light accentuating a lighter green and yellow on some branches. The trees had lost some leaves because of heat stress. Since the creek was not running much, some leaves accumulated in one area, as you can see at the bottom of the photo.

This section of the trail has quite a bit of shade. The sunlight only hits some trees. So, to obtain all the nuances in light and shadow, I made three images capturing darks and lights and all in-between. Then I merged the three photos to produce the one above.