Shadows Over the Valley
About Share PurchaseI have always been drawn to the works of the 19th Century painter, Albert Bierstadt. Bierstadt is best known for his upbeat and dramatic landscapes of the American west. The reason that I like his work is his incredible use of light. In a Bierstadt painting, there are two types of light: 1) almost blinding sun light, and 2) shadows as dark as night. And they were generally included in multiple places in the same painting.
I love this style of lighting, but don’t often have occasion to use it. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not the easiest thing for a photographer to have a single image where both the bright sunlight and the shadows are exposed correctly. Then I shot this photo.
What makes this photo of north California so special to me is that the background is in bright sun and the foreground and sky are very dark. I’d hazard a guess that about 7% of this picture is lit properly and the rest of the image serves only to frame that 7%. The only thing it’s missing is a couple of deer silhouettes on the hill.
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$50.00–$995.00