PROSPECT PARK — An orange maple leaf in Prospect Park issued a statement Thursday asking the public to stop photographing it, after appearing in an estimated 4,000 Instagram stories between lunch and the first cold gust.

“I am trying to fall,” the statement read, in a translation provided by the Parks Department and disputed by no one who was there. “The light is very nice. I am aware of the light. I do not need help finding my angle.”

Visitors had formed a loose, polite semicircle on the path, each waiting for a person in a long coat to finish. A dog in a sweater sat for three portraits and then, showing the judgment the leaf had requested, walked away.

The leaf’s representatives — a ranger, really, who had been asked to say something — suggested an off-season of looking without posting. Several people nodded and took a picture of the ranger’s suggestion, which they described as content about boundaries.

By dusk the leaf had reached the ground, where it was harder to isolate and therefore, briefly, at peace. The Gazette’s photographer did not take the picture. He will not be mentioning this on his podcast. ◆