Changing colors

What a difference a week makes! The last time I went to the Japanese Garden, on a gray rainy day, it was packed with photographers all clustered around the iconic Japanese maples which were showing off their exquisite autumn colors.

With bright blue skies forecast for yesterday, I thought I would return to catch the difference in light. This time, the park was practically deserted. Cold temperatures and high winds had drastically altered last week's colors.

Here's the maple with the mushroom from last week:

And the same tree with same mushroom this week:

The bridge last week:

And this week:

I saw only one other photographer. He was hunched over his tripod set low to the ground. He kept looking at his watch, camera remote in hand. Intrigued, I asked what he was doing and he explained that he was shooting a long exposure to capture the swirling leaves in the pond.
I looked more closely. I hadn't noticed how the leaves were moving.

If you just take an ordinary photo, the waterfall and pond look like this:

But after quick lesson from the more experienced photographer, I reset the ISO, the aperture, and the exposure and I captured the movement of the leaves!