Why Do Leaves Go Brown and Fall Off
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin is a British landscape photographer, writer, and editor best known as the co-founder of On Landscape magazine, where he explores the art and practice of photographing the natural world. His work is thoughtful and carefully crafted, often focusing on subtle details and quiet moments in the landscape rather than dramatic vistas. Alongside his photography and writing, he co-founded the Natural Landscape Photography Awards, serves as a judge for other international competitions. Through all these projects, Parkin has become a respected and influential voice in contemporary landscape photography.
Every autumn we go through the same cycles of: “Autumn is early!”, “Autumn is late!”, “It looks like a good one coming”, “The leaves will be gone by November”. Our knowledge of the vagaries of autumnal colour is that loose that we grasp hold of any indicator that might support previous experience or not.
I thought that this Autumn I would find out a little bit more about the processes behind our arboreal splendor and try to use this knowledge to let us be a bit more scientific about assessing our chances of ‘peak colour’.
If you've got any observations about how Autumn is affected by the environment or can tell us which trees go first or last we'd love to expand this article with some more real world information. Head over to our Facebook Page and upload your photos of autumn colour where you are [Click here]
Finally thanks to the Lake District's David and Angie Unsworth for helping with some of the 'on the ground' observations supporting some of the science in this article.


