Sometimes the most interesting thing to photograph really is right behind you.  This proved to be true today when I shot this “interesting” tree in Bellevue.  There I am, walking about with my camera looking for something cool to shoot and I’m not feeling that inspired.  So I literally lean against this tree.  While I was thinking of how frustrating it can get some days I turned and looked at the tree trunk.

I don’t know what type of tree this is or what was happening to it, but it looked like the bark on the tree was splitting and peeling off.  Then I looked up and noticed that the sunset had given the sky an interesting hue.  I also liked the small number of leaves in the tree, the fact that they had all nearly fallen kind of helped the picture I think.

It was getting a little dark so I needed to put the camera on a tripod to take this one.  But I was worried that if the wind blew too hard the branches and leaves would all have motion blur. So I took lots of shots hoping that one of them would come out well.  Ironically they were all pretty good, but the one I’m posting tonight had (I think) the best focus.  The texture in the tree trunk is really cool here.   Quite gnarly with bits falling off and the sky is very interesting.  I shoot all my pictures in raw (that means I have all the data the camera saw when I get home) and while I usually leave the camera’s white balance setting on auto, I can fully change it when I get home.

Once I loaded the picture onto the computer the tree color was slightly off so I color corrected for the tree and the leaves and this is what gave me the blue / purple sky.  What I saw was kind-a dark blue, but this looks really nice so I left it.  I do think the tree and leaves are pretty close to what I saw.

Tonight Carter challenged Master Chief to a marshmallow tower building competition.  Let’s be honest, he didn’t stand a chance!