No alliteration or fancy title today. Just a simple picture of some land in my hometown. This is a view that I hadn’t seen before and was the other end of the trail that I walked after seeing the white variant of the red trillium last Monday. Those of you who saw this on Facebook know that I removed a bright white sign from the middle of the image as well as a woman and her dog that were walking across the field near the central tree. I don’t usually remove things but this light only appeared for a few seconds and when they were gone so was the light. Artistic license. Some folks like the human element in a landscape but in this case I did not wish them as part of the picture.
Oh yeah…while walking the trail I also came across this…
It’s a moose track. 🙂
Stephen Gingold Nature Photography Blog 
Are there many moose there?
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Probably not too many as we don’t hear of many sightings and this was the first time I have seen moose tracks in Amherst. The Quabbin does have a population of +/- 100 and I have seen a few there.
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Now if there had been a moose in that beautiful light, I’m guessing you would have kept it – more artistic licence.
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You betcha. If I added stuff a moose would top the list.
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It’s good to see you’ve renewed your artistic license before it expired. The intruders have gone into the photographic ether, so long live the (not unretouched) landscape.
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It never occurred to me to ask for a model release so use of the image with the woman and her dog might have proved problematic. And removal of the sign most likely will be noticed if I display it locally.
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I expect everyone other than the person who put up the sign will be happy to see it gone from your picture.
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Welllll….the unfortunate part of that is the person most likely is a town employee as that is a trail sign.
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That’s a fine landscape Steve. I think I may see the Moose on the loose in the far distance.
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Thanks, Andrew. Wouldn’t that be nice. We have had occasions when a bull moose has romanced a milk cow but not locally.
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I’m curious about what the offspring would look like if one of those moose had succeeded in his romance.
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As far as I know there never was a success…but possibly you do know that a female moose is a cow.
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But is a milk cow not a bovine?
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Too many labels, Steve. Love is all that matters. 🙂
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I’ve nothing against people or signs, but I think your decision was a good one. I’m amazed by the variety of colors, and the perfect wash of yellow light. It looks like a painter’s landscape: British comes to mind, but it could just as easily be American. It’s beautiful.
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Spring can fool you. It’s not quite the riot of brilliant saturated autumn hues, but the greens are varied and stay that way for a week or two before the heat averages them all out into a nice medium tone. It’s also helped by the warm low angled rays of the rising sun as it peeked out from the clouds for a few moments. It reminded me also of your description which is what I was hoping for. Thanks, Linda.
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WOW, how cool is that? I waffle on the human element in a landscape too, and I’m afraid I’ve eliminated my share 🙂
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You can claim the moral high ground by not painting such things in in the first place, whereas we photographers have to take overt measures after the fact to remove them (the exception being that sometimes we can find just the right vantage point to keep them from appearing in our photographs in the first place.
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I have been known to paint them out, after initially thinking they were a good idea and then changing my mind. I wonder if God ever thinks that>
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There are creation myths in which God changes his mind. For example, see the second paragraph in the Death section of the article about Bantu mythology at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_mythology
Closer to home in our own majority tradition, think about the reasons given in Genesis for the great flood.
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From the movie Julia I learned that the Italian term for painting something out is pentimento because the painter repents.
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I prefer no human elements whatsoever as often as possible, Melissa. I know that in some venues the addition of a person in the landscape is seen as a positive addition. I’d rather otherwise and will leave those compositions to others.
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Nothing wrong with ridding a scene of distracting elements. The human and the dog would have ruined this wonderful scene. It’s beautiful with the cattle in a pasture in the background.
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I agree for the most part, Yvonne. But I’d prefer that they not be there at the start. OTOH, they were rather small in the scheme of things and others may have wished to see them there. And they are…in the RAW file. Nothing gets destroyed. 🙂
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Indeed, beautiful light.
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Thanks, David. I hope all is going well on the farm and school is just about out.
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