Backlit leaves

Many years ago I worked in a ma-pa camera store called Cam-Ra Fair. Fred and Greta were the ma & pa, and they were great people to work for. At the time, we lived in an apartment and I didn't have a darkroom. Fred let me build a Black and White lab in the back of the store. It was win win, we offered custom black and white printing services and I got to have a darkroom again.

One day a young lady came in and wanted me to print an 8 X10 of backlit Maple leaves from her 35mm negative. 

It was a beautiful photo and I must have exposed dozens of frames trying to emulate that photo. I never came close.

I made this photo last Saturday while waiting for Evan to finish work. It's a color file and I wasn't happy with it. Today, I had the bright idea to change it to grayscale and play around with the tones a bit.

Much better. It's not Maple leaves, but it comes close to what I remember of that impressive photo.