Beacon Of The Plains

This was a tough shot. I won't lie, one of the hardest exposures I have ever taken. The dynamic range was just absolutely gigantic and even using my Sony a550's ability to shoot HDR in camera set to almost full & a 4 stop Grad ND I was having trouble. In the end I managed to pull off one that was a keeper. There isn't much out here on the eastern plains of Colorado. A lot of dirt roads that go one forever, open range for cattle and abandoned farms dot the landscape. It some ways it is like a land which time forgot, lost in the past eons ago. It is also very very quiet. In many ways it gives you the sense that the end of the world has happened. It is kind of spooky. It is also very beautiful. I wanted this shot and I wanted it bad. There was something just odd about this scene that got me. Here stood this windmill, the kind you see in the yards of old farmhouses, yet there was no house, there was no yard. Maybe at one time perhaps there was ages ago, but whatever trace of anything there is long gone.It got me though, greatly. I found the whole scene kind of ironic really. Surreal. Light, all of life is based around it and yet, here this windmill stood with the light reflecting on the blades, but nothing around it at all. A sense of man with no man at all. That light in the blades though? A complete catalyst for a photographer.
I hope you all enjoy it
---John

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