Assignment #1 Alex Skinner - "The House Among the Pines"

I went home this weekend for a wedding. I am from Northern California, which is current resident to the King wildfire. One of my friends took me to his parents house where an ominous cloud of smoke moved toward his home. I took the picture in the one area where there was a hole among the trees to get a shot of the smoke. Unfortunately the sun was shining on many areas and provided distracting lighting (like the light that showed the three cars parked at the house. While editing I had to eliminate the lighted areas that distracted the eye from the central focus of the picture: the house that leads to the trees that point upward to the smoke. I love the trees as the only line of defense between the fire and the home. I brightened the image in the center of the house and around the edges of the smoke to make the blue sky a more perfect outline of the smoke. The rest is basically a tree sandwich with the grey house and smoke as the bread. This picture is so frightening and real.  Close up the scene is peaceful and beautiful, but simply look to the sky and the immanence of destruction is real. The house among the pines is safe for now, protected by the trees and nameless heroes fighting the blaze.