Highway 280 is a stretch of road that basically connects San Francisco with San Jose. It’s arguably one of the most beautiful highways in the US. The problem is, most of the land is State owned property that is inaccessible to people. This particular shot was taken off 280 of a tree on the Stanford University property (also closed off to human traffic). I have always wanted to take a few shots of some highway views, but could never find a way to do it. This image immediately came to mind when the Zen challenge came up. I basically put on the hazard lights and pulled over to the side of the highway, stuck my camera out the window and took the shot. Funny part was, I had to loop around one time between exits, as the first time I wanted to pull over, a State Trooper was giving out a ticket to a speeder RIGHT where I wanted to stop.
Post processing included some cropping in, lot of levels adjustment, saturation, some sharpening resize and save for web.
Hope you like it. The simplicity and serene beauty make it Zen-like for me
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Lovely shot. The warm colours and the shadows speak of the golden hour, during which this shot, was, without a doubt, photographed. The lonely tree on the left is balanced by the long shadow, that leads the eye out of the frame. For a more minimalistic feel, I would also have tried to compose this shot without the sky in it at all: just the tree against the yellow field. An off-topic thought: without the tree this photograph makes a Ukrainian flag. :)
I like the simplicity of the shot, but I think the contrast between the sky and the horizon could be broken up a little more. Maybe if the angle was changed, so the tree could partially reach above the horizon. Still a very nice shot!
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