Shot at Arboretum "Belmonte", Wageningen, The Netherlands. ISO 500, 105 mm, f/11, 1/100
By Lumière Novan (Luno), Luminos Magazine - Eternal Gardens, March 4, 2026
There are photographs you don’t merely look at, you breathe them in. Richard Gouw’s Autumn Roof is one of those images. From a low angle, he looks up into a dense canopy of leaves, zoomed in so closely that the tree itself completely disappears. What remains is an explosion of autumn colors: fiery orange, warm yellow, deep red, purple, and lingering patches of green, blending into a rich, living color field. The branches and veins form dark, organic lines that dance through the image, without the whole still being recognizable as a tree. It has become pure color, light, movement, and emotion.
Impressionist Light in Abstract Form
What touches me so deeply is how impressionistic this image feels, while remaining abstract at the same time. The colors seem to vibrate, as if they are still wet with paint. You see the loose, lively strokes of light falling through the leaves, the soft transitions between tones, the way yellow and red flow into each other like brushstrokes on a canvas. It carries that same loose, emotional energy you find in the Impressionists: Monet’s water lilies, Pissarro’s autumn trees, but without becoming figurative. It stays abstract, and precisely because of that, it gains something universal and timeless. You are not looking at leaves; you are looking at feeling. At the last, intense glow of life before everything returns to the earth.
The Technical Refinement Behind the Emotion
Technically, the photograph is remarkably refined. With 105 mm and a small aperture of f/11, Richard created enormous depth of field, making the entire plane sharp and turning the image almost flat and painterly. The ISO 500 provides just enough brightness for the colors to sing, while the short shutter speed of 1/100 second freezes the moment perfectly. In post-processing, he made the color palette even more balanced, gently softened the contrast, and kept the light diffused, so the whole image feels even more like an Impressionist painting. Vibrant, yet serene.
Joy and Melancholy in One Breath
When I look at this photograph, I feel a deep, warm joy mixed with a gentle melancholy. It is the joy of abundance, of color giving everything one last time. But at the same time, I feel the transience: this is the final, intense glow before the leaves fall and the silence of winter sets in. It moves me because in my own work I often search for exactly these intense, emotional moments in which nature reveals its most beautiful and vulnerable side.
A Bridge Between Photography and Painting
Richard Gouw has achieved something special here. He was touched by the color palette of the leaves and managed to abstract it into a living, Impressionist color field, without it still being directly recognizable as a tree. It is a bridge between photography and painting, between observation and feeling.
Thank you, Richard. This image reminds me why I keep photographing: to hold that brief, intense beauty for a moment, and to pass it on to others.
Light and shadow, always,
Lumière Novan (Luno)
Luminos Magazine - Eternal Gardens