Bleached Beauty and her two Admirers - Dead Cottonwood tree on ND Prairie Wood Print

Even the skeleton of a dead, sun-bleached cottonwood tree can be beautiful in the right light on the ND prairie! I shot this scene from the cab of a semi truck (stopped) while hauling soybeans for my brother in ND a few weeks ago. These trees are about 1 mile south of the BTR (CenDak now, I guess) elevator east of Leeds. The sun was setting behind me, but the beauty was in the sun-kissed cloud tops in the other direction, away from sunset, as is often the case.

Image taken 10/25/18 with Pentax K-1 and DFA28-105 lens at 58mm, f8, ISO200, 1/15 sec.

Peter Herman was born and raised on a farm in North Dakota. He first became interested in photography during high-school, and after acquiring a Pentax SLR, began taking photos for the school yearbook and developing/printing B&W images in school darkroom. He continued shooting through college, taking portraits, group pictures, weddings, but after beginning his engineering career at Cummins, he let his photography interests go dormant until about 2005 when he acquired his first DSLR and started shooting scenic landscapes from around the US, but concentrating especially on rural areas in ND and WI. Many of his images were encountered while riding motorcycle down random backroads during "golden hour", searching for that magic light...