There is this myth in landscape photography that one must venture into the wilderness or at least down a trail to get a quality photo, but that is not always the case. While it is my preference, this photo presented itself to me in the waning light of a late fall day as I was returning to my Moab home from an afternoon trip to our LaSal Mountains.

The dirt road has a few switchback turns, and as I came around the last one and straightened out, there was this. I stopped and even rolled down the window. I'm not embarrassed to reveal that I even rolled back and forth in the vehicle to gauge whether there was a decent composition. Seeing that there was, I pulled over, gathered my camera and tripod and simply walked to the downhill side of the road and set up. While doing so, a few other weekend warriors drove by, slowed and then proceeded, probably wondering what I was looking at. Judging by their vehicles and dress code, I'd say they were hunters; after all, it was fall.

The setting sun was at the perfect height to illuminate the row of small aspen while the land behind was shadowed blue. Though I made a few vertical images, this horizontal one soon showed itself as the best one. I had only to decide which of the trees to include/exclude and how much of the background trees to use. Click.

At home, I altered the background shade color to reduce the magenta and gain the blue I saw. I intensified the sunlit aspens and lightened the foreground. While scanning the image for dust and other flaws, I wanted to heal or clone away; I was surprised to see that a deer had entered the scene. Were you always there? Wow! I did not see it while on the mountain, yet here she was. She saw me, but I totally missed her till now. I wonder what else is in these images of ours?