Silver birch, golden birch...

I missed the frosty sunrise and gorgeous early morning light, waiting in for our computer man. In the end I'd written the wrong time down in the diary, so could have actually made the most of the light!

I sneaked in a short walk under grey skies, just before the rain arrived. On the way back I strolled through a grove of young birch, whose leaves were just turning colour. I think silver birch are one of my favourite species of tree, beautiful whatever the season, but today I decided to go for an abstract approach and had fun experimenting with different effects.

This was the overall favourite, rather reminiscent of a pastel painting, but there were several other interesting images that were close contenders, including one that was almost like a batik! This image has had no special effects applied - it's pretty much SOOC with a very slight crop and a tweaking of the levels.