A lone pine tree reaches into the edge of the sunlight on a steep slope in the Eastern Sierra. High up on the side of the valley this pine tree caught my eye. Surrounding it was a sea of quaking aspen trees which had mostly lost their foliage save for one clonal colony directly behind it. This provided golden backdrop for the tree and I set up and captured a shot. While I was hanging out at the area I noticed the creeping edge of the sunlight moving down towards my composition. I decided to hang out and see what happens. The light ended up cutting exactly horizontally across the composition, and I waited until the grove of peak autumn aspens were ablaze with sunlight. This also resulted in a gradient of sunlight from the top to the bottom of the pine. I liked the way it highlighted the tree and further separated it from the background compared to the composition in shadow which is more colorful.
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