What you see is what you get

 

The thing about October is that, on a good day, just about everything is beautiful. Okay, part of the reason this shot strikes me as attractive is lighting. Had the day been rain besotted, had the woods not been mottled by dark and lurking shadows, this plain old maple leaf would likely draw nothing but flies. If that. But the sky was clear, the sun was bright, and the season itself provided that glorious rusty yellow. 

Or this. A bouquet of aspens, tall as naked ladies, a bevy of them amid some maples, all of it way down there beneath us somewhere.

By rights--or so it seems--the autumn of the year shouldn't be so beautiful because if this shot witnesses anything, it's death and decay--"death and decay in all around I see," but, gulp, it couldn't be more beautiful. People go "up north" almost any time of year, but fall trips call out the thousands because in October the world is an art gallery, full of masterwork accomplished by the Master Artist. 

I forget how the line goes, but it's operative here too--"success is 90 percent sweat and ten percent talent" (maybe the numbers are off, but you get the picture). Photography requires some skill, but the most significant component of any slough of great pictures is being in the right place at the right time. And what I'm saying is that, in a bright October sun, plunked right in the middle of the woods in some northern clime, you're there. You've got to try really hard to screw up on autumnal glory. Just fire away. 

Here's a shot I knew the moment I looked was going to be a winner.

So let's review the facts. It's October, the leaves on those hardwoods absolutely could not be more flashy--factor numero uno. Secondo?--the lake is calm tonight. If there were any more of a ripple, this shot wouldn't be this shot. Three: the sun is dying in the west, bathing the world in its own glorious gold glory. Four: I'm there. I'm not inside the cabin reading my email.

Five: the distance between me and the other side of the lake is perfect. If the channel was just twice as wide, the stretch of all that glorious color wouldn't cover the water like it does. Six: I got a camera in my hand. 

What I'm saying is that beauty is only partially in the eye of the beholder. You see it when you're permitted to. I was, right here, outside a cabin at a Minnesota lake, the passive recipient of grace. Sure, I had a camera, even if it was only my phone), but the Creator of heaven and earth served me up this delicious autumnal salad. All I had to do is click the shutter.

Fall is a blessing, the grandest momentary reprieve we could ever be granted. How sweet it is of the Creator to soften the blow, how tenderhearted. If I were standing right there today, just a few days and some untidy winds ago, what that camera would see would be absolutely nothing like this. 

That's the story. "Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul"--or something like that. It is, really--it's very much like grace itself, all this beauty is. 

Yesterday, it was there in spades. Today, it's gone.

For just a while, thank the Lord.