We strive to post content in tune with the seasons here at The New Leaf Journal. October is the first of two months to be fully situated in the autumn (in the northern hemisphere, at least). The morning air is crisp, the afternoon sun has a softer glow than it does in the summer, and the leaves incline toward brown. I found in my collection of legacy BlackBerry Classic photos the perfect, distinctly “October” photo to suit the season: a turtle crawling along with a brown leaf on its back.
Five months earlier in the heart of spring in 2019 I had taken a photo of a brown leaf floating in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rock garden. Despite the fact that the brown leaf gave the photo an autumnal feel, it was still very much spring. However, this turtle, which I captured at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on October 22, 2019, not only has an autumnal aesthetic, it was also captured in the autumn. Although it is a bit hard to see in the photo, the stone bridge that the turtle is on does cross over a small man-made waterway. The turtle was slowly, but surely, crossing from one side to the other. That it was carrying a leaf along for the trip made this shot one that I had to capture.
The brown leaf turtle carries autumn on its back.