On the weekend, a special treat for my dog (who are we kidding, for me as well), is to take a longer morning walk at the Milne Conservation area nearby.  This is a magnificent expanse of land frequented by many for barbeques and family time.  Where I enter the park, there is a lone maple tree with large reaching branches and in the fall, the yellow colours are absolutely brilliant especially in contrast to the dark colour of the bark.   The tree is located on a hill, which gently slopes down to the dammed water below.  In the morning, this tree had back lighting, so the leaves looked even more stunning, sparkling in the light.  Rather than just taking a picture of the tree on its own, my plan was to have my golden retriever next to the tree.

I wanted him in the light, so there would be some rim lighting picking up his golden highlights.  But I thought it would look too artificial placing him in a sit position next to the tree while I trek back the 40 metres to the location of where i was taking the picture.  Something more natural would be a shot of him standing, making it look like he hand just wandered into the frame.

So after a week of training him the “stand” command and getting him to look profile, we were ready.

Here are the results, one with him looking at camera, and the other profile.  Pretty beautiful wouldn’t you say?

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