Decay

Fall is such a beautiful season with all the colors of the leaves changing. There is also a beauty in the decay of nature that comes with the season. The leaves start drop from the branches and start to crumble apart. The details in these leaves remind me of lace. In 2019, I found myself just walking around and noticing all of the leaves covering the ground and the beauty that they had in the way that they fell. I noticed the gray and brown tones on the tree limbs that had broken off the main trunk. The crinkled corn stalks show they are ready for harvest.

Even though fall represents death or the decay of plants and trees, I am reminded that this allows new life in the spring. The beauty in this is what I wanted to photograph. I made the prints in this series using the Van Dyke process. I chose this process because of the rich browns that it allows. Once all of the color is gone from the leaves, all we are left with is brown. I printed them on a vellum paper so they would be translucent and added the gold leaf on the back of the paper to give the prints a metallic copper look. The prints have the look of a precious metal. This reminds me that our land is a treasure and we need to protect it.