Having missed peak autumn colors this year due to weather issues and illness, I was looking back at some of my favorite autumn photos from last year. Imagine my surprise when I realized one of my all time favorites was a dumpster!
Because I wait for autumn photography opportunities the way a kid waits for Santa on Christmas, it’s no surprise that I have thousands of photos of the northwoods here in Minnesota during autumn.
From close ups of leaves, beautiful nearly abstract splashes of color, to traditional landscapes and small town-scapes I have a ton of photos that I’ve never even processed yet. But this photo has been tucked away in a favorites file for a long time.
Here’s the twist!
It’s not the featured image of this blog post! Though I do enjoy the simplicity of those leaves resting on the birch bark.
Nope.
One of my favorite, we’re talking all time favorite, autumn photos is a simple scene of a dumpster at the back of a parking lot with a massive burst of golden orange surrounding it. The fiery leaves blazing in contrast to the cold asphalt and minty green of the dumpster.
On the surface it’s really a pretty simple composition.
But the layers that blend and flow so nicely, the colors that play off of each other so well, they just work.
Sometimes that happens with a photo. It just works.
And because I’m a smartass, I like to refer to this photo as “Autumn Dumpster Fire”.
