A rainy fall day in the Eastern Sierras provides spectacular views of a rugged, yet beautiful, landscape. To make this scene work as a photograph, I compose it around a series of striking contrasts in color, texture, and directional thrusts. I fill the foreground with a wet road flanked by dual focal points – a brilliant yellow tree on the left, and a car about to take a curve to the right, its tires leaving a fine mist of water in its wake. I contrast this colorful flow of the road moving right, to a series of light brown hills bearing hundreds of leafless trees that zig and zag both to the left and to the right as they climb towards the top of the frame. A forest fire probably scourged these hills, still another way that nature works on the land. Man, nature, rain, fire, color, and movement – all play their parts in this memorable scene.