• PHOTOGRAPHS : 1980-2000
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GOLD AS GREEN

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AND ALL IN-BETWEEN

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A P H O T O G R A P H I C R E T R O S P E C T I V E

B Y

R O B E R T M I D D L E T O N

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Updated - December 27, 2022

A CACHE OF MY UNPUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPHS

CELEBRATING FORESTS, WILD PLACES, AND OLDER DAYS, WITH SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY AND A FEW RECOLLECTIONS, STORIES AND OPINIONS

Thank you for visiting. You have reached a place of peace, where you can rest without the discouraging influence of anger, resentment, hate, hostility, intolerance, inequality, greed or untruths. You WILL find beauty, knowledge, inspiration, calmness and quiet.

Explore as you wish; stay as long as you like. Return as often as you wish. Leave your thoughts, comments and questions. Share the site with your friends. This is mostly for you, and a little bit for me.

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COMMENTS FROM VISITORS TO THIS SITE:

“… transcendent and sublime…”

“…I could look at your photos forever…”

“…what a treasure that is so needed in this dark time…”

“…thank you for brightening my day…”

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MY INSPIRATION for the title “Gold as Green” was the extraordinarily thought-provoking short poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” published by the celebrated American poet Robert Frost in 1923:

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

By Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

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The Gallery

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GOLD AS GREEN

  • PHOTOGRAPHS : 1980-2000
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A small hidden garden of light and color

Cool Temperate Rainforest

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia

Photographed April, 2000

Golden Lichens and Tree Ferns adorn a remote, hidden and highly-threatened stand of cool temperate rainforest in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Tasmania, Australia. July 1994.

“The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

Henry David Thoreau

ALL OF THE IMAGES shown on this site were captured in the days of film. Although today’s digital cameras can capture in phenomenal detail almost any scene in an unbelievable range of lighting conditions, in the days when I was most active as a photographer, digital was still emerging and I considered film still to be best able to capture the heartfelt scenes that I so passionately wished to share. Fujichrome Velvia 100 was my color film of choice, with Kodak Plus-X my choice for black & white. A trustworthy Hasselblad camera with legendary Carl Zeiss lenses of a wide variety of focal lengths were my tools of choice, together with a heavy, rock-solid tripod, various film holders, light meters, filters and other paraphernalia, the entire assortment adding up to well over sixty pounds, carried in a padded, compartmentalized photographer’s backpack. In later years, as my ability to carry such a heavy load began to diminish, I trimmed my lens selection down on particular days to just one or two, lightening the load, leaving the remainder in the car, if I anticipated a long day of hiking.

Homage to Claude Monet

Water lillies and summer sky reflections, Unnamed lake near Alingsas, Sweden

July, 2000


I'VE NEVER BELIEVED in walking around making snapshots with a hand-held camera. I used a much more deliberate and patient approach, selecting a scene that seemed to speak to me so strongly that I couldn’t pass it up without making a photograph. Even if I were hungry, thirsty, tired, wet, frozen or running out of daylight, I had to make the shot; otherwise, it would haunt me forever. I tried the camera in several different positions, watched the changing of the light, the shadows, the wind, and after sometimes more than an hour of observation and deliberation, sometimes leaving and returning the next day, or the next year, or the next 2-3 years, I eventually got the picture I hoped for. To get maximum depth-of-field in all of my shots, I relied heavily on the distance and aperture scales engraved on the barrel of the Zeiss lenses, a feature that is largely absent from most camera lenses of today. Every shot was taken with the camera firmly locked down on the tripod and all scenes were shot using bracketed exposures. I always traveled and worked alone. Being quiet for a lengthy interval resulted in birds and other small animals seeming to accept my presence, losing their fear and coming quite close, even up to my feet. I loved the solitude and tried not to think about sometimes being 10,000 miles from home without a single soul on the planet knowing where I was.

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Winter Forest Pond

Tiveden National Park

Southern Sweden

December 2000

Kangaroos, Mt. Lofty Ranges,

Near Adelaide, South Australia
June, 1989

Given my preference for using a moderately large, somewhat heavy and slow-to-set-up camera, mounted on an also-slow-to-set-up, heavy tripod, and using a manual light meter, I never devoted much time to attempting to photograph animals. By the time I was ready to shoot, the animals had nearly always moved on, usually due to my noise and movements in getting ready.

However, one afternoon in late June of 1985, during my third trip to Australia, I was day-hiking through the Cleland Conservation Park in the Mount Lofty Ranges east of Adelaide in the state of South Australia. As usual, I was being quiet and moving rather slowly. I saw off to my right, perhaps twenty-five feet away, this group of kangaroos, motionless and quietly resting among the eucalyptus trees. I stopped and took in the scene.  Clearly, the ‘roos had seen me approach and were watching me very closely. Their alert ears suggested they were ready to bound away at any moment. I thought about walking away, assuming they would never stay put long enough for me to set up to capture the appealing scene on film. But the scene was so compelling I couldn’t escape. The positioning of the animals and the lighting were perfect. I decided to give it a go and chose to try getting a few shots in black and white.

I slowly approached the animals, advancing maybe ten feet, keeping my back to them, expecting at any moment to hear the rustling sound of their lightning-fast dash deeper into the forest. I worked as quietly as possible, making no aggressive, quick movements. I was nervous, sweating profusely and my hands were shaking, I finally got the tripod set-up and leveled, mounted the camera, loaded a roll of black and white film, and slowly turned around to view the ‘roos and make some minor adjustments to the camera and lens.  I took a reading with my light meter, set the appropriate aperture and shutter speed on the lens, double-checked the focus, took a deep breath, hoped for the best and captured 12 images, varying the exposure slightly for each to make sure I got at least one spot-on exposure. Miraculously, the animals didn’t seem threatened by my presence, and remained calm, though still vigilant.

I felt emboldened and decided to load a roll of color film. I fumbled with the film, becoming a bit annoyed with myself, and decided to check the light meter again. I misread it, didn’t get an accurate reading, and shot 12 exposures in color.  I had goofed and lost my composure and the entire color roll turned out to be mostly overexposed and largely unusable. Lousy work on my part.

Along came a loud, chatty, laughing family with two boisterous, rock-and stick-throwing boys.  I knew that my magic moment was over and I packed up and moved on along the trail.  Sure enough, when I returned to the location an hour later, there wasn’t a kangaroo in sight.

Now, thirty-four years later, the memory of that day and that scene lingers vividly.  The old negatives and transparencies endure to this day, faithfully recording an endearing image of a few magical, dream-like moments from long ago.

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LIGHT


Very few of my photographs were made in direct sunlight. I preferred deep shadows, overcast days or misty/foggy early mornings or late afternoons into early evening, using long time exposures up to 15 seconds or more. Once, in the never-completely-dark mid-summer days of Sweden I photographed a stand of birches at midnight! My preferred lighting reduced or eliminated the glare, reflections and harsh colors of full sunlight, resulting in gloriously deep, intense, vivid, saturated colors that the Fujichrome lovingly embraced and rendered beautifully.

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Winter Sunset,

Ancient Pencil Pines, Montane Rainforest

Pine Lake, Tasmania

July, 1997

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Forest Detail

Cool Temperate Rainforest

Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park

Tasmania, Australia

July 1996


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In Australia, Distance is Visceral

Outback Road Sign, Alice Springs, Northern Territory,

Australia

July 1984

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Autumn Leaves

Deciduous Beech

Cradle Mountain - Lake St, Clair National Park,

Tasmania, Australia

April 1997

A 13” X 19” print of this image is currently being offered for sale by the Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles. It is printed by me using archival, pigmemt inks on Infinity Baryta Prestige paper manufactured by the Canson company, which had its origins in the year 1557. The edition is limited to 10 prints. For further information, copy and paste this link and open it in a new page:

https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?u=5a6e385eed959142044dc8096&id=8e6f87a188

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Storm Clouds Over Clear-Cut Forest

near Tiveden National Park,

Southern Sweden

July 2000

Gem of the Deep Forest

Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Summer, 1980

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All Is Green

Cool Temperate Rainforest

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Southwest Tasmania, Australia

July 1997

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Sunset, Great Oyster Bay

Freycinet National Park

Tasmania, Australia

July 1997

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Usnea, a rainforest lichen

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia 1998

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Two Birches

nearly camouflaged by lichen-covered boulder

Tiveden National Park

Sweden

December 2000

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Rainforest Tree Ferns, Southeast Tasmania, Australia

July, 1997


ONCE THERE WERE almost 1,000 images in this collection, preserving a lifetime of memories and special places. Included was a small set of black and white prints that were the first photographs I ever made, using a Kodak Brownie that my parents gave me in 1952.

Almost fifty years later, in a time of upheaval and uncertainty in my personal life, all of my  images, along with all of my personal belongings, as well as a collection of 300 books on the history and exploration of Australia, journals from nearly all of my past travels, various writings on diverse subjects, old, expired passports, memorabilia from my childhood, including the beloved scrapbook that my mother, who saved everything, had created and maintained for me, and the only photographs I had of her – all the miscellany, trivia, letters, graduation certificates, newspaper clippings, ribbons, school pictures and other objects and documents that collectively serve to define a person’s identity, heritage and life story, were all placed in a rented storage space, only for a short time, it was thought.

Then, a heart attack, and related recovery period, made it near impossible for a while for me to keep on top of the many tasks that needed attention.  When I eventually contacted the owner of the storage space, I was told that the entire contents of my unit had been sold at auction the previous month due to nonpayment of rent.  Everything was gone. Forever. Sold to a buyer not to be revealed. It was a devastating, almost life-threatening, self-inflicted blow, a colossal act of carelessness and irresponsibility, but all my fault; no one, except for me, could be blamed. I felt like an utter failure and I’ve never gotten over it.

The images you see on this site, and the ones that will be added soon, survived because they had been kept in the trunk of my old Mercedes in a plastic storage container instead of being placed in storage.  I continue to grieve every day for those that were lost and only recently mustered the strength to share these – a portion of the survivors - with you.

“O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”

Thomas Wolfe

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Color in the Summer Forest

Tiveden National Park

Southern Sweden

July, 2000

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Pandanus

A shrub often seen in the Cool Temperate Rainforests of Tasmania

On the Dove Lake Trail

Cradle-Mountain - Lake St. Clair National Park

Tasmania, Australia

July 1990


A Message to Visitors

If I seem to be overly preoccupied with birches, pines, lakes, leaves, rocks, tree ferns, lichens, mosses, the Tasmanian rainforest, the Swedish forests and on and on.., it’s because these are things I know about; they are a part of me and I wish to share them with you and others so that if you should ever get to the same locations you will maybe see what I saw and feel what I felt so many years ago.


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Ancient Pencil Pine In Montane Rainforest

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia

June 1997

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Reflections of Summer

Lake Fagertarn

Southern Sweden

July 2000

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Winter Sunlight on Birches and Pines

Lake Fagertarn, Southern Sweden

December, 2000

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Storm Light on Cradle Mountain

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia

1997

I have visited this iconic site countless times through the years, in all lights and weathers. It became a spiritual home for me, though it was 10,000 miles away. Sadly, I will never visit it again, my traveling days being gone forever. On the day I made this photograph the area was somewhat busy with tourists, though chilly, windy and with a few snowflakes falling. By late afternoon, the tourists had disappeared, safely back in their rooms at the lodge. I was left alone, and I was determined to stay until the last bit of light slowly faded. It was cold, dark and blustery, but I was richly rewarded when a small break in the clouds allowed some light to strike the flanks of the iconic, rugged mountain. A small bit of the surface of Dove Lake is seen in the center foreground, softly reflecting the light from the mountain, I have discovered over and over again not to abandon an image too early just because you are cold, hungry, anxious, feeling lonely - whatever. The most magical times can come when the light is the dimmest and may be almost non-existent. Don’t give up! The interplay between light and the landscape is powerful. It is in control, but you can capture a fleeting moment of it if you persist and know how.

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Tree Ferns #2

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia

July 1996

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Only a Dream

Sunrise

Lincolnville Beach, Maine

Summer, 1980

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

John Lennon

Pencil Pines

Montane Rainforest near Pine Lake, Tasmania, Australia

July 1998

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Tree Ferns In Relict Cool Temperate Rainforest,

Southeastern Tasmania, Australia

July, 1997

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Christmas Day

Just a momentary ray of sunshine illuminates a tiny cove

on Lake Little Trehorningen

Tiveden National Park, Southern Sweden

December, 2000

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Antlers

The Store Room,

El Rancho de las Golondrinas,

south of Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 1998

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Icy Cove

Lake Fagertarn

Southern Sweden

December 2000


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Giant Rainforest Myrtles

The trunks of two ancient Myrtle trees frame a third, approximately 1,000 years old.

Dove Lake, Cradle Mountain - Lake St. Clair National Park

Tasmania, Australia

July 2005

Hard Water Ferns

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Southwestern Tasmania, Australia

July 1996

Weathered Granite Boulders

Flinders Chase National Park,

Kangaroo Island, South Australia

July 1986

THESE ANCIENT granite boulders, together with numerous others that are close by, are collectively known as “The Remarkable Rocks.” They are the result of extreme weathering and erosion by wind and rain over a very, very long time. The overhang of the largest rock is tall enough for an average-size person to easily stand up in. I can imagine that in times long past indigenous Australians must have used that as a shelter, perhaps even assigning it spiritual value, though there is no notable proof of their former presence in terms of artifacts. It is known that they lived elsewhere on Kangaroo Island, the evidence being stone tools and shell middens. In the background is the Southern Ocean, with roughly 2,500 miles of open water to Antarctica.

Visiting this off-the-typical-tourist-route site can be hazardous.  By walking a few yards beyond the rocks, one finds oneself on an enticingly gentle, downward, rounded slope which, without warning, suddenly becomes a near vertical cliff, with nothing to grab or hang on to, dropping nearly two-hundred feet to the tumultuous ocean below.

This location, and the remainder of the large Flinders Chase National Park. were utterly destroyed by the hellish Australian bush fires of 2019. Only a few miles from where I made this photograph, the fires claimed the life of my good friend, Dick Lang, a legendary bush pilot and explorer in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Africa, along with his son, Dr. Clayton Lang, a noted Australian surgeon. They were overtaken by the flames; Dick was found in the burned out shell of his Land Cruiser and Clayton was found a short distance away beside the road. Dick had already survived leukemia, and, while flying alone over the vast outback, he survived the sudden loss of both engines on his Queen Air. I flew thousands of miles with him; he understood and appreciated my intense love of the outback and was one of the kindest, friendliest and most knowledgeable people I have ever known.

 “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.”

William Shakespeare

Granite Ledges With Evergreens And Moss

Tiveden National Park, Sweden

July 2000

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Christmas Day

Clouds move silently across the sky,

pale shadows creep across the forest floor,

as in a silent movie,

I sit

on the cold, rock-hard ground of

December

beside this frozen Swedish lake,

remembering older days,

listening

to the ice and the tall pine trees

talking

to one another.

Robert Middleton

Shadows on Adobe

El Rancho de las Golondrinas,

south of Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 1998

I DON’T RECALL the last time I photographed a person. Throughout my life I used photography as a means to express the special connection I feel with nature and to hopefully encourage preservation of our natural world. The human-built world and indeed the human faces of the world, have not been a source of inspiration for me. But, once in a while, I find that I discover a strong sense of emotional attachment and depth of feeling with certain human-created scenes that speak to me of time, heritage, tradition and people from older days. Such is the case with El Rancho de las Golondrinas (the Ranch of the Swallows). The lovely texture of the adobe, the light, the shadows, the old timbers, the old windows, doors and other wooden features, seen under the magnificent summer skies of New Mexico, all combine to create a powerful force that speaks to me just like the magical scenes of nature that I usually like to capture. El Rancho, established in the early 1700s, was an important stopping place on the Camino Real (the Royal Road) that connected Mexico City with Santa Fe. Today it is a magnificent living history museum that celebrates and teaches about the Hispano heritage of northern New Mexico. It is a must-see for any visitor to New Mexico and if you scroll down you may find other images from this special place that is so worthy of great honor and respect.

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Deciduous Beech Leaves in Autumn

Cradle Mountain - Lake St. Clair National Park

Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

Tasmania, Australia

April, 1998

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Quiet Corner

El Rancho de las Golondrinas,

south of Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 1998

A 13x19 in. print of this image is available at:

https://snowysendshisbest.com/2020/10/26/series-seventy-five-no-3/

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Four Birches

Near Lake Fagertarn

Southern Sweden

December 2000

Winter Sun Reflections

Outback water hole near Alice Springs

Northern Territory, Australia

July, 1986

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”

Loren Eiseley

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Ponderosa Pines

Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, near Springerville, Arizona

July 1982

“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

Henry David Thoreau

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Portal

El Rancho de las Golondrinas,

south of Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 1999

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Wetland Birches

Near Lake Fagertarn, Southern Sweden

July, 1999

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Wild Lake At Sunrise

Tiveden National Park

Southern Sweden

December 2000

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Ghost Birches Near Midnight, Sillerud, Southern Sweden

Summer 2000

The Forest Floor

Deep in the shadows of ancient trees, lies a tiny, secret garden of lichens.

Cool Temperate Rainforest, Cradle Mountain - Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania, Australia

July, 1995

“We can never have enough of nature.”

Henry David Thoreau

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Casa de la Abuelita (The Grandmother’s House)

El Rancho de las Golondrinas,

south of Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 1999

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Summer Sky Reflections

Surface of Lake Trehorningen,

Southern Sweden

July, 2000

Exploring a Swedish country road one afternoon in the countryside around Sillerud, the location of my stuga for the week, I came upon Lake Trehorningen, one of the countless hundreds of thousands of natural, glacier-carved lakes and ponds that are such a dominant and lovely feature of the Swedish landscape. I found a pull-off, parked the car and toted my camera gear up a small hill overlooking the beautiful lake spread out below me. Setting the gear on the ground, I took a look around in all directions in the deeply-shadowed pine forest, looking for an inspiring scene to photograph. Eventually, I turned back to once again stand facing the lake and looked downward toward my feet. There was the prize of the day down the slope - the most extraordinary blue I had ever seen! It was the crystalline blue of the summer sky, free of haze or cloud, reflecting on the surface of the lake. There, where the blue penetrated into the deepest shadow where the slope of the hill intersected the lake, seen through the silhouette of some pines, was this surreal, sapphire-blue of the finest quality. I set up the tripod and camera in record time, composed the picture, calculated the exposure and quickly shot an entire role of Fujichrome - 12 frames, bracketing the exposures to insure that at least one of them would be perfectly exposed. I chose the best one to share with you here; I hope it brings you a few moments of pleasure. This scene was fleeting; a few minutes earlier in the day or a few minutes later, or a different day, or a different time of year, and the scene would not have existed. Everything was perfect - the season, the month, the time of day, the angle of the sun, the height of the tripod, the viewing angle of the lens, the lack of a strong wind to blur the trees but just enough of a breeze to lightly ripple the water and add detail and a feeling of movement to the lake surface - it was magic. In terms of composition, the image is all about color and the gradation of the color from light at the top down to deep blue at the base. The silhouettes of the trees are not especially compelling but they do add perspective, scale and orientation to the overall scene. I am thrilled with the image.

COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, REQUESTS?

Please let me know you visited this site. Do you have comments? Does a particular image have special meaning for you? Would you like to request permission to use one of my images in your own artistic works or for commercial purposes? Would you like to acquire a museum-quality print? Would you like to be notified when new images are added?

Please write to me at the email address shown below. I will reply promptly and cordially. I pledge to never share your e-mail address with another person or entity without your permission.

cradle.mountain@hotmail.com