I took this shot on a recent morning walk around Harpers Ferry. Because of all the hills around the town the sun actually arrives considerably after official sun-up which is always interesting to factor in when trying to get the right sort of light.
I’ve taken variations on this shot many times before but this time I finally got the morning light hitting the bare tree that stands behind the old Virginius Island bridge. It’s something that only occurs for a fairly narrow window of time and only at specific parts of the year (winter and early spring basically).
Other than that it’s a pretty simple shot. The tree is the focus of the shot and lines up on the right third of the image while the bridge sits on the bottom third using the rule of thirds. Sunlight does most of the rest. Looking at it now I think it would have been good if I had aimed the camera just a little bit higher so the cross of the two thirds landed where the top of the stone wall of the bridge is. But that’s easy to say after the fact.
I did tweak things in Lightroom a bit to accentuate the effect. Nothing too strong, just tweaking the highlights and shadows to maximize visibility and putting a gentle circle fade on the image centered on the tree to increase the contrast of light to dark from the images edges to it’s focal point.
And for anyone who is wondering, yes the title is a Lord of the Rings reference…
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