In December 2020, I was scouting for winter images in the greater Montreal region. When I saw this beautiful leafless tree, I stopped and parked the car safely on the side of the road. A farmer planted this tree several decades ago, and it has thrived.

In contrast, the ruined barn, which we can imagine to have been built by the same farmer, has succumbed to the weather and time and will not stand the weight of winter snow and wind for much longer. My two subjects were beautifully set with a white foreground carpet under a textured sky, with the distant forest underlining their isolation.

I used the rule of thirds to compose the image, with the tree (my star) on the right vertical third. You can see the proportions of the ground and sky. I used a 28mm focal length to frame the image. As always, to have a perfect histogram (ETTR), I overexposed by 1.7 stops.