Fall Leaves

Three color-negative frames of leaf-covered ground and thinning trees along a Belmont Bay path in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Belmont Bay, Woodbridge, Virginia, United States / 35mm color negative (stock unidentified) / Fall Leaves — Belmont Bay Loosies collection, 35mm film archive

The roll starts low, camera almost at leaf level, looking down a dead-straight corridor of a path in Belmont Bay, Woodbridge. A chain-link fence runs the whole left side toward a vanishing point; the trees on either edge have gone half bare, and everything they dropped is underfoot — a carpet of orange, brown, and rust that swallows the trail completely. The sky is the pale washed blue of a clear late-autumn day, and what leaves remain hang on in stubborn yellow clusters.

The second frame holds the same vantage but the corridor is no longer empty: two figures walk away down the middle of it, side by side, small against the fence line and the thinning canopy. The leaf carpet is thicker here in the foreground, close enough to count the maple stars in it. It is the kind of frame where nothing happens and that is the point — a straight line, two people, and a season on its way out.

The last frame turns away from the corridor and looks up. A young maple stands on open lawn beside a pale building, its remaining leaves lit from behind so they glow amber against the sky, the sun flaring hard off the building's edge. Long shadows rake across grass already dusted with the tree's losses. On 35mm color negative the light goes warm and slightly hazy, which suits the subject: a tree mid-surrender, photographed at the exact hour it looks best doing it.

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Virginia / Belmont Bay / United States

Cemetery - A single fall afternoon among old walled stones and white marble rows in Alexandria, Virginia, on 35mm color negative.
Kodak 200 at Belmont Bay - Golden-hour shoreline frames from Woodbridge, Virginia, where a goose family holds the bank.
Loosies - Orphan frames from the Virginia waterfront, where fog, flowers, and camouflaged moths all practice the art of disappearing.
Same Shots, Two Film Stocks - One evening at Belmont Bay, photographed twice — matching frames from two different color negative rolls.
Snowfall - Five color negative frames from a Woodbridge, Virginia snow that arrived before the garden agreed to winter.
Giants Art from the Dean Collection at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (I) - A color-negative walk through the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, from Dean Collection galleries to painted stone.
Giants Art from the Dean Collection at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (II) - Neon, marble, and glowing resin traded back and forth through the glass of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
RVA Day Trip - A short color-negative walk through Richmond, Virginia, from new glass to painted brick to late-sixties chrome.

Images

A straight path completely covered in fallen orange and brown leaves runs between a chain-link fence on the left and bare autumn trees on the right under a pale blue sky. — The path keeps its line even when you can't see it — a fence for a handrail, leaves for pavement.

Two people walk away down a leaf-covered path bordered by a chain-link fence and brick wall on the left and autumn trees on the right. — Two walkers hold the center of the corridor, small against the fence line, wading a season's worth of maple stars.

Sunlight flares past the corner of a pale building behind a maple tree with glowing orange leaves, casting long shadows across a lawn scattered with fallen leaves. — Backlit and half-bare, the maple burns its last color against the sun — long shadows keeping score on the grass.

Fall Leaves

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