Under the Japanese Maple

Under the Japanese Maple (Originally uploaded by randubnick)

I took this photo today during an afternoon walk at Long Hill. There were such strong winds last night that I didn't expect to see many leaves still on the trees, but I was pleasantly surprised. It has been cold at night, so finally there are some bright red leaves. The leaves of a Japanese maple have a red cast all year, but in autumn, the red can be very intense. I shot this photo with my phonecam pointed up at the sky. But the bright light made the color very dark in the photo, so I had to play with the contrast controls and saturation to bring the photo back to the color I saw this afternoon. Then I cropped the photo to get the square format.