In August 2018, I was scouting rural roads in the St-Cesaire region of Quebec, looking for beautiful landscapes. The sky was full of massive and complex cloud formations. I spotted a distant, lonely tree standing over a golden field.

I parked the car on the side of the road and set up my tripod.

For this composition, I needed to determine the best focal length. For such scouting, I carry all my lenses, which cover a range from 16mm to 840 mm (35mm equivalent). Here I used a 24 mm focal length to frame the scene with the distant tree on the left side of the distant mountain leaving the right side empty. I wanted to communicate the loneliness of the tree set in a wide and beautifully colored environment. Using my wide-angle lens, I was also able to capture the forms and textures of the vegetation in the foreground.

Scouting on rural roads offers great opportunities to seize the beauty of wide-open spaces.