We spent the last three nights camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was up with the sun yesterday lurking in the shadows of morning and waiting for the light to turn magical. I drove a remote fire lookout I had noted on the Forest Service map. When I arrived I was a disappointed to find the the view less then spectacular.

I loaded up and started back down the mountain, but stopped when I saw these broken, burned trees. The light was coming over the horizon behind me, with the moon still in the sky over the tree tops. The way they stood, broken yet proud, immediately caught my eye. I stopped and spent some minutes planning this single composition.

It’s hard to show the beauty of a scene like this is so small a space. It needs to be in a large print. Since this is not a large print I’ve added a close detail crop below to give a better feel for the intricacy in this scene.

For Photographers. How it was made…