A beautiful and appropriate saying landed in my lap this week, courtesy of a friend who regularly forwards "5 Bullet Friday" to us.  Published by author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru Tim Ferris, there is always something that catches my attention in his publication.  This week, it was the Latin saying "solvitur ambulando" which means "it is solved by walking".  I was dumbfounded to read this because my personal feeling has always been that myriad things are solved by walking, from internal questions and the world's struggles to finding the perfect photograph.  When the snow began to fall two weeks ago, leaving 15 inches on the ground in Santa Fe, I began to walk and shoot photographs.  Not of lovely stacks of snow on stucco walls and in the trees, but of the thousands of leaves previously hanging on the trees but brought to the ground when the storm moved in. The ground was covered with layers of leaves, ranging in colors, according to Kassia St. Clair's book  The Secret Lives of Colors, from yellows to browns and multiple shades and hues in between.  Normally, by this time of year, most of the leaves have already fallen but the ones brought down by the moisture were subdued, moody, and some might say bleak in feel, but I always tell myself that these colors represent the many backgrounds of nature.  They are not the bright "in your face" colors that capture our attention for relatively short periods of time, but the brown and yellow that linger and change as the daylight becomes shorter.  The way moisture falls in beads on a leaf is fascinating. A bonus is that when the temperature is perfect, beads are in that elusive intermediate state between liquid and ice.

The leaves shown below held a bit of everything - ice and water beads, like the one in the bottom right hand corner that was in limbo between liquid and ice.

Still life -aspen leaves in ice and snow 5 2024
 

The droplets on the leaves below were all liquid, being transparent enough to show the leaf veins.

Still life -aspen leaves in ice and snow 3 2024 Still life -aspen leaves in ice and snow 1 2024

The near-icy patches on the top leaf could have been a map defining continents. 

Still life -aspen leaves in ice and snow 4 2024

I found this combination of the top soft yellow aspen leaf and the rich brown leaves below very pleasing. 

Still life -aspen leaves in ice and snow 2 2024

It was heartwarming to hear from so many of you last week, including Minna, Barbara F. R., Terry T., Victoria, TTT, Claudia, Kathryn and Gene, Catherine, Jean & Sam, Katy, Steve, Ingrid, Pater, and Marilyn G.  My hope is that the changing seasons, wherever you may be, provide abundant interest as well as photographic possibilities, with solvitur ambulando in mind. 

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image©