By Scott Shephard

It is in a maple leaf's genetic code that it will turn some color other than green and fall off the tree at the end of the growing season. How colorful and exactly when a leaf will change and fall involves serendipity. And that this particular photo of these particular leaves exists at all involved even more serendipity. What follows is how this happened.

Last week, Deb and I decided (on the spur of the moment) to drive down to Brookings to see the South Dakota Museum of Art.

When we were leaving our house, Deb asked, "Are you taking your camera?"

"Nope," I said. But then I reconsidered and picked up my heavy orange camera bag.

After the museum (which is excellent), we decided to go to the Wooden Legs Brewing Company (which is also excellent). They didn't open until noon and we had 20 minutes to kill.

I said, "Let's just drive around." And so we headed south on Main Ave. A few miles down the road I saw these trees a block east of Main. I wasn't looking for something to photograph. But they must have been looking for me.

I turned around, parked the car and got out with iPhone in hand. My inner photographer's voice (which seems to be mostly mute these days) in a scolding tone said, "You need the Big Camera for this." And so I put my iPhone back in the car and got the Big Canon 5DII and the Big 70-200mm telephoto lens and spent 20 minutes taking way more photos than I needed of these beautiful maple leaves. Once I get started with a good subject, I have a hard time stopping.

Still reading? Here's the moral of this story: Serendipity and Design are not strange bedfellows. They are perfect companions and they certainly seem to follow (or lead) me wherever I go. This photo is fitting proof.

Canon 5DIII 1/500s f/2.8 ISO400 200mm