In the continuing search to find images that somehow embody the essence of a moment, or of a place or time, it is sometimes possible to eke out a drop of that essence by sheer will or force of trying.
More often than not, however, fleeting images come and go and only in hindsight capture some of what has passed - engrained in the memory, an image (or reverse image, outline) that remains when the moment is gone.
During an October weekend in New England I had taken the car to look for the autumn colours I was expecting to find in the Boston hinterland - and as the day drew closer to an end it became abundantly clear that I was probably a week or two too early to hit the peak of the foliage fanfare.
Still, as I was about to get in the car and stow away the (underused) camera, there was a single leaf on the car roof, a section in what looked like black fumed glass reflecting the overhead branches and the curled up orange sheet that had come to rest at just under eye level. An easy image, and yet something I would not have been able to anticipate, nor construct purposefully, even if I had tried.
Boston 2018 : 241/365