Bare at Nightfall

I saw this tree out in the middle of a field and had to get closer to get a decent shot. I parked my truck alongside the road, grabbed the camera bag and set off towards the tree. I wanted to get a wide angle shot of the landscape, but by the time I got to the tree, it was too dark for my 17mm f/4. So, without a tripod, the only thing I could use was my 50mm f/1.4. It’s not the shot I wanted to get, but it turned out ok.

In the 45 minutes it took to get to the location and back to the truck, the temperature must have dropped 20 degrees. I was freezing, it was dark and I was disappointed in not getting the shot I went after. When I pulled the shot off the camera and saw that I had something keepable, I felt all the trouble was worth it – and all of the trouble is what I will remember everytime I look at this photo.

The story and experience behind the photo are sometimes the best part of the photo… another viewfinder lesson.

Canon EOS 5D
Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM