What I realize about this photo of my brook this morning is that it looks like a pointillist painting. On a gloomy November morning, under the low light of a gray sky, I find very little to photograph. Nothing is fresh, nothing is growing in this season of woods. 

I am looking for inspiration. I look up pointillism and scan the work of Camille Pissaro. This process of discovery, looking to fine art, returns me with renewed interest and enthusiasm to my photo of the brook. What is my picture of the brook about, and why does it please me?

What I see now is how my image captures the life and death - the abundant showers - the presence, the cyclical splendor of leaves. The leaves are the landscape, the leaves are the story. They are green, they are gold, they are gone. The thin black limbs of the trees, the forked branch - like arms reaching up to the sky in praise or thanks - that centers the frame, stand in the background. They will be the startling outcome of the story, as the leaves fall completely to be recycled in the stillness of the wintering brook. 

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2016 unless otherwise attributed.