Lone Oak and Storm Light

@Dulcie: As Ansel once quipped, "Sometimes I feel that I arrive just when God is ready to have someone trip the shutter." No way I could have planned for this.

@Richard: The color was fantastic, but I have to agree with you that the image would not have been complete without the foreboding sky.

@Didier DE ZAN: Thanks.

@MK: Thanks MK.

@Mici: Thanks Mici.

@Babzy: Color is one of the elements I place extremely high on my list for images to be successful. Combined with quality light (which actually produces the great color) it becomes a can't miss situation.

@Scott F. Schilling: I thought this scene might look familiar to you Scott - it is off Quien Sabe Road where we shot the moonrise last month.

@KriKridesign: Hi Kristen, I'll have to defer to Ansel Adams once again for this answer. He said that the negative is the score and the print is the performance. I capture all my landscape images in RAW mode (the score), and I process them first with Adobe Camera Raw (global adjustments), then into PS (for localized adjustments). I look at the finished image as the performance. When I capture an image in the field, I can already see the finished image in my mind, and I strive to bring alive all the qualities that the RAW file will allow. Having said that, I try very hard to capture the image as close to "finished" as I can. This often involves the use of filters. With this image, the only filter used was a Singh-Ray NB Polarizer (I have polarizers on all my lenses). Because I was about 70 degrees off-angle to the setting sun when it broke through the clouds, the polarizer helped to saturate the greens and darken the sky. I really did very little in post-processing with this image other that set a white and black point in ARC, and bump the clarity and vibrance a bit to add a touch of contrast and bump the green just a tad. The rest was courtesy of Mother Nature. If you are struggling to get rich color and tones with your images, it may not be your processing, but rather the time of day you are shooting. Time your sessions to begin 45 minutes prior to sunrise and no more than 30 minutes after (and flip this around for sunset) and see if that doesn't immediately improve your images. Light (quality light) is everything with landscape photography. Get it right "in-camera" and post-processing will be a breeze. I hope this helps.

@Florence: Thanks Florence - I hope you are doing well.

@k@: Thanks.

@theys: I have people seem amazed that I shoot many of my landscapes with telephotos. The framing should be done in your mind's-eye as you view the scene, then it is simply a matter of choosing the lens that fits what you have envisioned.

@Foto-aksent: Thanks - never really thought of myself as a minimalist photographer - I just react to what feels right when I look through the viewfinder. I like to think more of balance - kind of that "ahhh" feeling.

@Tamara: Thanks Tamara.

@Marie-Jezaria: Thank you so much for your kind words Marie - you have made my day!

@Yonatan: Just having a couple of uninterrupted hours to be with him in these beautiful surroundings was worth it. He is developing a keen eye for light and he enjoys nature, but no interest in photography.

@Elora: Thanks Elora.

@Curly: Sometimes I'm lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time Curly.

@Mike: I'll let you know as it will be going off soon.

@MARIANA: Thanks Mariana.

@Gina: Much appreciated Gina.

@DarkElf: I see it all the time in image reviews with our workshop participants. I think we all start out thinking "simplify," then we can't resist the temptation to add. This is why I like working with telephotos in landscape, they help with this isolation process.

@payam: Thanks.

@Sergei Z: Winter is just about gone. Spring is official this weekend!

@Judy: Those "brown hills" will be "brown" soon enough (I think they are referred to as golden). Our area is so beautiful when the hills are green, but alas, summer is on its way!

@elmer: Thanks Elmer for your kind words, and thanks for joining in on my blog.

@Tracy: We all get seduced by great color. I was photographing some green hills carpeted with wildflowers the other day. It looked great through the viewfinder, but there was no focal point. Without one, the eye drifts and becomes disenchanted. I hope you have a great weekend!

@Bethany: It was very beautiful Bethany. I think sometimes we need to just put the camera down and enjoy what God grants us to see. Thanks for writing.