Autumn Leaves

There’s nothing particularly striking about this photo at first glance. Just a flower box tucked against a weathered wall. A few green leaves still stubbornly clinging on, others browned and curled, caught mid-fall. It’s the kind of street element you pass without noticing, or maybe glimpse and forget.

And yet, it’s a portrait — not of a person, but of a moment in life.

That in-between moment.
When you’re no longer young, but not yet old.
Not blooming, not dying. Just… suspended.

There’s resilience in the remaining green, still pushing out colour despite the changing cycle. But there’s no hiding the signs of decline. Age creeps in at the edges first — you see it in the crumple of a leaf, the slight sag in posture, the soil a little dry from neglect. Time passes differently here. Nothing dramatic, no metaphorical storm — just the quiet gravity of things moving on.

This is why photography matters even when the subject is ordinary. Especially when it is. Because not everything that’s powerful is loud. Not every image needs drama. Some speak softly, and in doing so, say everything.

We photograph the grand and the glorious. But sometimes, we need to photograph this too — the liminal, the overlooked, the painfully familiar state of becoming something else.

And maybe, that’s the most human picture of all.