Working with Mrs. Lewis

Mrs. Lewis is a professional gardener and is armed with nothing more than a smartphone for taking shots. I must have been boring her silly about photography over the last few weeks. She stopped work to take this photo because of the fantastic colours of the fallen leaves which the wind had carved into a path.

I took the liberty of cropping and colour grading it.

The Griffiths' Garden in Autumn, Jeannette Lewis, 26th October 2015

The colours of the fallen autumn leaves are amazing but the compositional colour balance is very awkward. The deep green of the hedges has no balance. There is also tonal asymmetry but I saw this as less of a problem and more of an opportunity.

The Griffiths' Garden in Autumn (Edit), Jeannette Lewis, 26th October 2015

Reduced to black and white, a purely tonal composition, the deep reds and greens become more harmonious and the darkness of the bushes less distracting. The path of leaves is now freer (supported by the bush) to force the viewer to the focal point of the porch.

In "reducing" to black and white I made adjustments in the tonal values of selective colours.

I get the feeling that a dark figure (or figures), a silhouette in the porch , would have completed the image.