I was visiting family in another town in Oregon and even though I wasn't planning to spend any time photographing, I brought my camera anyways. This was towards the end of October and all of the leaves were turning amazing shades of gold, red, orange and yellow. Since spending time with my family was more important at the time, I stayed close to the house. During this particular day a heavy rain and wind storm moved through the area, pelting the landscape with big heavy drops and strong gusts of winds. I knew that a lot of the leaves would be knocked out of the trees, but that was OK with me because I was there for family. There was a period when the rain let up enough to go outside so in being helpful, I offered to take the garbage out.

As I went out the front door, I saw the grass and sidewalk literally covered with leaves, to the point I couldn't see what was underneath. The whole way to the garbage can I was looking down at the ground, examining the leaves. I saw so many potential compositions! Once the garbage was deposited I ran back in to the house and grabbed my camera and tripod. I then spent the next 30 minutes photographing different leaves. This image turned out to be one of my favorites due to the water drops and arrangement of the leaves and open spaces.

All of this goes to show that you don't need to travel to exotic destinations to capture beautiful images. Sometimes they are right outside the front door!