My love for Autumn began with approximately 500 artificial leaves.

Yes. Artificial ones. 🍂

At the time, we were living in North Carolina, and I had already started studying photography. One of our photography challenges was, appropriately enough, about Autumn.

There was only one small problem.

Autumn hadn’t arrived.

The challenge ran from around the end of September into the middle of October. If you have ever lived in North Carolina, you probably already understand my problem. Despite the word North in its name, North Carolina wasn’t particularly interested in giving me northern weather. 😄

It was still warm. Still humid. The trees were green. Everything around me seemed to be saying summer while my photography assignment was asking me to find Autumn.

I remember looking around and thinking, What exactly am I supposed to photograph?

And then my creative side took over.

If I couldn’t find Autumn, I would have to create it.

So I went on Amazon and ordered what I remember being around 500 artificial Autumn leaves. And I was lucky. When they arrived, they were surprisingly beautiful—yellow, orange, amber, red. Good imitations, too.

Suddenly, I had my Autumn.

Or at least 500 little pieces of it.

And then I started playing.

I put leaves around an open book and created my own Autumn reading scene.

I used them with a glass to create an Autumn drink.

I placed a colorful leaf inside an empty picture frame, surrounded by the stubbornly green North Carolina landscape.

I even used them for a photograph of my son walking, with one Autumn leaf caught beneath his shoe.

But my favorite creation was much more ambitious.

I decided to make an Autumn umbrella.

I took an ordinary umbrella, covered it with plastic bags, and then began gluing those artificial leaves onto the plastic. One after another after another, until the umbrella disappeared beneath a huge canopy of orange, yellow and red.

Then my wife became my wonderfully patient model and walked beneath it while I photographed her from behind.

I still love that photograph.

Most of the image is black and white, while the umbrella explodes with Autumn color. Looking at it today makes me smile because the photograph accidentally tells the whole story.

The real world around us wasn’t ready for Autumn.

So I carried my own Autumn into it.

At the time, though, I wasn’t thinking about any of this. I wasn’t trying to discover a new favorite season. I wasn’t looking for some deeper meaning.

I was a photographer with a challenge to complete and a problem to solve.

But something happened while I was arranging those leaves, choosing colors, building scenes, looking through my camera and trying one idea after another.

I started enjoying Autumn.

Not because someone told me how beautiful it was. Not because suddenly every tree around me turned orange.

I fell in love with Autumn by creating it.

And perhaps that’s why photography changed the season for me so completely. It made me stop thinking about what Autumn was supposed to be and start discovering what it could make me feel.

Today, when I look at these old photographs, I see much more than a photography challenge.

I see the beginning.

And perhaps there is something beautifully funny about the fact that something I love so genuinely today began with something completely artificial.

Those 500 leaves were fake.

But what they started in me was very real. 🍂📷

GK

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Published by georgi.kisyov

31 thoughts on “Why I Love Autumn — The Beginning”

    1. Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the essay. Your morning search sounds like my kind of Autumn adventure—I’ll look forward to seeing the colors you found once you share the photos!
      GK

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    1. Thank you so much! Autumn really does seem to pass far too quickly, so we have to enjoy every bit of it while it’s here. And I’ll definitely pass your thanks along to my wife—without her patience, that umbrella photo wouldn’t exist!
      GK

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  4. I’ve brought Autumn into my home with AI mountain scenes on YouTube. They have running water, birdsong and crackling flames. They run between 1 to 4 hours and I like playing them while reading.

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    1. That sounds like such a cozy way to bring Autumn indoors! I can imagine the sound of running water, birds, and a crackling fire creating the perfect atmosphere for reading. It’s another lovely example of creating the season we want around us.
      GK

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  5. amigo, do you live in beautiful North Carolina? I am a native North Carolinian and return 2 or 3 times a year to the Charlotte area to visit family.

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    1. I used to live in North Carolina, and I have so many wonderful memories from our years there! It really is a beautiful state, and once Autumn finally arrives, the colors can be spectacular. I’m sure those trips back to Charlotte are always special for you.
      GK

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  6. We do create our seasons by how we inhabit them, co-create with them, and experience life’s moments framed within them. I love your creative journey with consciously creating autumn, and yes, the umbrella photo of your wife is wonderful and intriguing to create our own stories of an umbrella covered with fall’s momentos. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you so much for this beautiful thought. I especially love the idea that we help create our seasons through the way we inhabit and experience them. And I’m glad the umbrella photograph leaves a little room for imagination—that makes it even more special to me.
      GK

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    1. Thank you so much! And I love the “gold, amber and red” description! I never entered the umbrella photograph in a contest or had it published—it remained part of my photography work from that time. Looking at it again after all these years, though, I’m very happy I created it.
      GK

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  8. What a GREAT READ!! Really good photography too!

    I love bringing the outdoors in, especially for Fall. Well, REAL branches with beautifully colored real leaves inside the house, it’s a really DUMB idea! The leaves dried out in a very short time and made a mess! I only did that once, and have have purchased the most realistic fall colored leaves that are fake. It works for me. Ha,ha

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    1. Thank you so much! And you made me laugh about the real branches! Sometimes artificial leaves really are the smarter choice—beautiful colors, no drying out, and no mess afterward. My 500 fake leaves certainly proved useful too! GK

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  11. I love the irony that something artificial awakened an appreciation that became completely genuine. But there is another little gem tucked into your story that caught my attention: the season did not cooperate, so instead of spending your time disappointed by what was missing, you began working with what you had.

    There is something wonderfully applicable to life in that. We cannot always choose the season we find ourselves in, and sometimes it looks nothing like we hoped it would. But we can still choose what we cultivate within it. Paul wrote, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11). I don’t think that means merely tolerating our circumstances. Sometimes it means looking around at what God has placed within reach and asking, What can I make of this?

    You couldn’t make the trees change, but you could change what you did with the landscape you were given. And somewhere between 500 fake leaves and one very patient wife standing beneath a homemade autumn umbrella, something real began growing in you.

    Funny how often the things we initially consider limitations become the very things that awaken our creativity. Beautiful story, Georgi.

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    1. Thank you so much for this thoughtful reflection. I especially love what you saw in the story—that sometimes a limitation can become an invitation to create rather than a reason to be disappointed. And yes, somewhere between those 500 fake leaves and my very patient wife under that umbrella, something completely real began.
      GK

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    1. I remember seeing plenty of pine trees there too! The Fall colors definitely depended on the area, and they seemed to take their sweet time arriving. That was exactly what made my photography challenge so interesting—I needed Autumn while everything around me was still stubbornly green!
      GK

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      2. Haha, those 500 leaves definitely earned their keep! Unfortunately, I didn’t keep the umbrella, and now you’re making me wish I had! It certainly would be quite the conversation starter—and perhaps I should have started taking orders.
        GK

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