"One day
I know
We'll find
A place called home"

PJ Harvey - A Place Called Home

This shot was taken just outside my home in a small area of woods that most people (sadly) just use to dump garbage.
I was there to photograph flowers against the low light of the sun, and after I got the shot I was after, I turned to leave and cast a last look over my shoulder at the wonderful light.

I'd just passed through an area without trees which had enough open space for the long shadows of the trunk to be cast, a phenomenon that I wouldn't have been able to see had I been in any other part of the wood.

I took a spot meter reading from the well lit grass towards to back of the picture, and composed my shot to fit as much of the shadows as possible.

When I imported the photo onto my computer, I played around with RGB levels to get this colour effect, and increased White Balance by around 500k (as I'd not had my warm up filter with me when I shot the image).

I still felt it was missing something though, there was too much to distract the eye among the branches at the top of the portrait format image. Cropping off the tops of the trees to leave the sun near the top of the photo, and removing any distractions I thought made the image more focused.

Taken in Quinta dos Lombos Sul, Carcavelos, Portugal
Nikon D80 | Sigma 10-20
f4.5 | 1/80 | -0.7 exp. comp. | 10mm
Post-processing workflow in Apple Aperture