Red Oak, Golden River

There were tons (literally) of fallen leaves floating down the upper Hudson River after some stiff breezes for the past couple of days. But there were still plenty on the trees shining in the morning light on the opposite shore. The river is narrow enough here so the reflections cover almost the whole width of the river, so I put on my hip boots and waded in. The hardest part of shooting was finding single leaves -- Most of them were in unattractive rafts.

By the way, I did not alter the colors of the reflections other than a slight levels adjustment to brighten the image. For some reason, reflected leaf colors often look very intense, especially in a close shot.

This will be part of a triptych. Still picking out which images to include, but a test sample appears below in my next comment.

Canon 50D
Canon 100-400 IS
1/200 sec @ f/8, ISO 200