The Arboretum in October - Part 1

It was a fairly nice night tonight so I decided to head to the Arboretum.  I left work a little later than I wanted to which meant that I didn't have much time to wander around the Arb.  So I am going to break up this month's post into two parts (thank you Quentin Tarantino for that idea).  Since I haven't done the part around the peony garden in a while, I decided to do that tonight.

A shot of the Reader Urban Environmental Center.  I kind of like the fall foilage behind it, I just wish the sun were a little higher to brighten the house.

There weren't as many fall colors as I thought there would be.  I think I might have missed my window a little bit.

One of the leaves.

I'm not sure what kind of berries these are but I'm pretty sure they are not ones that I would want to eat.

I kind of like how the sun was hitting on this leaf.  It gave a nice warm glow to it.

A leaf on the ground.

I believe the last time I was up here was in June.  At that time, the peonies were a little past their full bloom time but they still looked pretty impressive. 

Even though this flower is a little wilted, there is still a great deal of beauty in it.  There is something philosophical in that statement but I'm not quite sure what.

This one is definitely more beautiful with the vibrant reds.  For this one I used the manual settings on the camera because the auto-exposure was trying to wash the colors out.

Same with this one.  I'm usually not happy with the auto exposure in lower light settings.

I think I really like this one, it is set well against the darker background.

I'm not sure what angle I like on this flower.  This angle or the one below this one.

Which do you guys prefer?

And a definitely wilted flower.

A little better shot of some of the fall foilage.  I really like how the sun was hitting the top of these trees.

And my quest for a fractal.

I guess this one could be a fractal too.

So tomorrow night I will visit the part of the Arb that I normally visit.  As I was driving home tonight that area looked a little more colorful.