Well Merry (belated) Christmas everyone, and let me go ahead and say an early Happy New Year as well while I’m at it! I hope you all had a nice, albeit likely different, Christmas this year, and I hope you got to see at least some of your family. Here in East Tennessee we got a nice blanket of snow on Christmas eve, and that, combined with the on-going pandemic, limited what we were able to do, but if 2020 has taught us anything, it is to roll with the punches!
As I was looking through my fall images earlier in the season I realized I had several sunrise / sunset images that I wanted to share. Rather than limit the fall color images I shared by adding in the sunrise / sunset images, I opted to just give those images their own series, which we’ll start today. And how better to wrap up 2020 than with a nice sunset image! 🙂 Sunsets signal the end of the day and we’ll let that carry forward as a metaphor for the ending of a year.
This location actually caught my eye last year, however by the time I discovered it, almost all the leaves in the trees were gone (you can see that version here). This year I kept watch on the spot as the leaves progressed and lucked out with a decent sunset while the trees were near their peak color. Last year I was struck by how awesome even the bare trees looked when backlit by the setting sun, and the same magic happened with the leaves on the trees, as their leaves really came to life with the burst of light behind them, even out into the distance, as your eyes progress through the scene. I also really like how the yellow leaves on the trees in the foreground are complimented by the blue hues of the mountains in the background. It’s always great when nature hands you nice complimentary colors!
As we close out the year I am very much in tune to the fact that 2020 has been challenging for all of us. That said I’d encourage all of you to take a minute or two to reflect on the positive things that have come from the year, and perhaps the moments that would have not existed had it not been for the shrinking of our circles caused by the pandemic.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson