Cottonwood Dawn

Image No. TRNP0101: Cottonwood Dawn.  Oct. 23, 2014.  Nikon D7000 and AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, at 44mm, f/8, ⅛ sec., ISO 100.  Image specs: 4719 x 3095 pixels, 3.7 MB file size.

This scene was adjacent to my campsite at Cottonwood Campground in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  The soft light of sunrise on this striated butte and the reddish foliage in the clear, cold morning turned out better than the high-contrast, nondescript sunset of the previous day.  And I like how the delicate, fragile-looking tree in the foreground nevertheless starkly cleaves the full width of the glass-like Little Missouri River.