Spotlight

Don Stephen Rice Single Image Winner landscape/nature

Photo: Don Stephen Rice Single Image Winner landscape/nature photo no. 1
Ice Storm, Carbondale, Illinois, 2015
The tree in this image is a backlit, iced-over Dogwood photographed after an ice storm in Makanda, Illinois. It was isolated in a field of winter-dormant grass against a white sky. There was nothing compelling about the photograph except the tree. The clouds come from a section of a photograph of the sky during a tornado warning in Carbondale. The two images were then merged in Photoshop. In creating the composite of lone tree and turbulent sky, I tried to provide a dramatic context for the former, while implying a sense of “creation” for both.