Being there

September, from the calendar, "Madison County 2011"
Strasen Lane
Photograph by Tom Atwood

The secret to good photography, in my opinion, is being there. Sounds simple, but it's not. By being there, I mean two things. First, you have to get out of bed, usually early in the morning, and go somewhere. You have to be there. In the case of this picture, I had to be on a dead-end county road at dawn on a fall morning with dense, patchy fog. Then, once you're there, you have to think about where to be specifically when you click the shutter. The sunrise on this morning was lovely, but the sun overpowered everything else, including the fog. So, I moved off the road, trespassed slightly, and put the tree between my camera and the sun. Sometimes even an inch can make a difference. Usually always.
Shutter: 1/800; Aperture: f/8; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm
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