Flow of leaves
- 📍 Location: Cascade des Petits Moulins, Cernay-la-Ville, Yvelines, France
- 📅 Date: 2024
A wide mossy rock sits in the middle of the stream just below the fall, and autumn had left three or four yellow leaves stranded on it. I built the whole frame around that rock: it takes the bottom third, the water divides around it, the fall closes the top.
Vertical, because the picture is about descent. The eye starts on the leaves, follows the current back upstream against its direction, and arrives at the white curtain: a small resistance that makes the image feel longer than it is.
I kept the exposure at around half a second. Any longer and the leaves would have been lost under a smooth white wash; this way the water still has grain and the stranded leaves stay exactly where the current put them, which is the point.
These are the woods I go to when I have half a day, and I have photographed this fall in every season. Autumn is the only one where the stream brings its own subject and drops it in front of the lens. I only had to notice it and get low enough.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
