Tree in Black and White, Palouse, Washington

 

I love trees, and ‘lone trees’ can be wonderful to find and photograph against a dramatic sky. This majestic tree sits below Steptoe Butte in fields. The first time we visited this spot, there were no clouds, but we made some pictures anyway, with a plan to layer a texture into the sky. A few days later we were passing the turnoff for this tree and the clouds were very moody. It was going to be a silhouette in color because of the time of day, but I envisioned this as a terrific black and white image, so we turned down that road instead. It didn’t last long, but enough to give everyone a chance to create their composition.

I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro to ‘develop’ the black and white image in this post. I find Silver Efex Pro (SEP) to be a terrific plug-in to convert my images to monochrome – it’s easy to learn and very effective.