After one year of posting photographs of my little Chinese Maple tree for the monthly feature The Changing Seasons, this is the final post. The above photo was not edited other than to crop, frame and watermark it.
My title “Deceptive December” intends to show how quickly the maple tree flamed into its Fall glory, then within just a few days, began to dry and go to seed before taking its winter rest. Just when I thought the beautiful fall colors would last a few weeks, winter storms moved in and blew most of the leaves off over a short period of time.
The colors of this tree should have reached their peak in mid-November, but because of exceptionally warm weather through Halloween, the maple’s colors peaked right after Thanksgiving.
Here is a gallery of the maple in various stages just in the first few days during the month of December.
Participating in this photography challenge was fun and interesting. When I decided on a whim to photograph my own maple tree, I learned I had to be very creative with the photos since many of them looked EXACTLY the same. As a blogger, I came up with different angles and stories to capture the changes not always evident.
I also learned that my Samsung android phone takes dang good pictures!
In January I showed a naked tree shrouded in fog. By April, the maple was in full leaf and lasted that way, lush and green, until late September when it began to show the stress of the dryness of the fourth year of the drought in California. By October and November, subtle evidence of autumn was in the leaves.
Here is the gallery of the entire year!
I hope you enjoyed the year of the tree and its journey through the seasons.
This feature was brought to us by Cardinal Guzman. Please visit his blog for his final wrap up and his spectacular photos.
Second Wind Leisure Perspectives 
It’s nice to hear that you’ve learned something by participating in this challenge and it’s interesting to see the full year in a gallery! If you want to, you can participate for another year as well – I just posted the introduction for 2016 a few moments ago:
https://cardinalguzman.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/changing-seasons-introducing-2016/
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Oh, cool, Cardinal, I will take a look! Thank you again for hosting the challenge!
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Thanks for participating.
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Beautiful photos! The Chinese Maple is a beautiful tree!
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Thank , PJ. This challenge was fun. Cardinal Guzman is hosting another one
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You take great photos!
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Isn’t it interesting that something can look so different throughout the year? A photographer I know of from a town I used to live in made quite a name for himself by photographing the same tree throughout the year. If you have never seen it, it is called That Tree by Mark Hirsch http://www.thattree.net
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Thanks, Michele, I just took a look at the link, that is so amazing. What a great idea for an ebook!
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what a beautiful journey- such vibrant colors Terri!
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Thank you, Nancy!
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A very creative way to log your year. I like it. I wondered if seeing the different shots brings different memories.
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Thanks, Janet! It was challenging trying to make relevant posts around my tree! He is doing another yearly challenge–I may check it out!
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What a beautiful gallery!
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Thank you!
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These are all so perfect – I love autumn foliage. Down here we rarely get the reds and pinks just copper, yellow and orange.
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Those sound gorgeous, too, but yes, the bright reds and fluorescent oranges are amazing.
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Terri, you did a wonderful job of showcasing your maple tree in various ways. It’s a fun challenge to discover new shots to take of the same subject.
Christmas Blessings ~ Wendy
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Thank you so much, Wendy, Merry Christmas to you!
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It was a pleasure to follow your posts every month! Joining next year!
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