Morning Has Broken

[Julie Kenward]

I found this lone leaf deep in the woods of a nearby nature sanctuary this morning. I had the 400mm lens on thinking I might get some decent bird photos when I saw this leaf off in the distance. The morning light in this wooded area is amazing - every autumn I get the most incredible photos from here. This is my new favorite.

Canon 40D, EF 400mm f/5.6L
f5.6 @ 1/500, ISO 200
Manual mode, pattern metering, handheld, filtered light
Processed in ACR & CS4 with a slight tweak in Viveza. Small crop and cloned one branch out.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jules,
A nice simple comp and the 400 really did wonders for the BG...nicely muted. Maybe a hair of toning down on the leaf brightness.....but nicely placed compositionally.

[Harshad Barve]

sweet and simple , looks good , I may tone it down bit
TFS

[Julie Kenward]

It's so funny you both think I should "tone it down." I always upload my jpegs and think they look flat so recently I have been adding a boost of contrast and now I'm getting "tone it down" on all the different forums. Guess I'll go back to the old way of handling things!

Thank you both for your input!

[Dave Leroy]

I really like the simple composition and lovely bg. Dave

[Mike Fuhr]

Simple and that background is wonderful. I might crop a bit off the bottom, perhaps. I don't think it needs to be toned down at all.

[Steve Maxson]

A very effective comp and I like the complementary colors in the background. Well seen, Jules.

[Anita Bower]

Love this lone leaf with gorgeous BG! It says late fall!

Re. toning down, perhaps the reference is to the bright area on the right side of the leaf. Instead of boosting contrast, would using curves work to make the image pop while keeping certain areas from getting too bright?