The first hard frost of the season plucks all of the leaves from this Ginko tree in a day. The Ginko tree is an ancient tree, a living fossil, its biological systems unchanged from it's origins some 245 million years ago. It was once thought to be extinct until the late 19th century. Until then the only evidence of its existence was a fossil record. Rediscovered in a Chinese monastery it's seeds were collected and reestablished in the wider world.

The day I created this image was very calm, which made the conditions ideal for a focus stacked image, in which each image needs to be identical and any moving elements in the photograph will be ruined. I used a 105mm macro lens at f16, and a tripod to capture the best detail of this clump of leaves. One of the great things about intimate landscape photography is you don't necessarily have to travel far, and creative possibilities surround you even just outside your own back door.