Adam Welch

Eddie Adams said that our photographs are only half truths. So much is made of what to include within a frame when truly, it's what we choose to exclude that often makes or breaks the composition. This is one such photo that benefited from such careful exclusion. I made this exposure with a 24-70mm lens, which was the longest glass I had with me there on the trail; far too little to reach those far distant mountains. So, I knew from the beginning I would crop this photo to reach the end result I saw in my mind. This is about a 30% crop of the original. When I processed the image, the light was of course the main subject of attention, the beams reaching down through the clouds. The foreground was brightened and the colors very much muted. The distant temperamental sky along with the stillness of the foreground frame the layers of the hazy midground.