Hillside at Appleton Farms (Black and White Photo)

I have been working on an oil bar painting of this tree and hillside at Appleton Farms (Ipswich, MA), working from photos that I took there in late October.  In trying to paint the tree,  I have been struggling with light and shadow in the foliage. I think it is hard for me to see the differences in light and dark because I am so distracted by the many colors in the autumn tree. So this morning, I decided to go back to my photos and see what happened if I looked at the scene in black and white.  So I used iPhoto to make a black and white version of one of the photos.  It was very useful for painting (and I plan to post the painting tomorrow).  But I liked the black and white photo for its own sake, and decided to post it here.