Theme: Fencing the West

[Nancy Bell]

I photographed this on the high plains between the mountains during winter. These high plains are called "parks" and this is North Park. It's mostly an arid land of scattered sagebrush and very widespread ranches. The forage for the cows is poor and very sparse and ranches need a lot of land per cow. When the snow falls and the winds howl this is a very harsh and barren land.

In PS filter gallery I used palette knife. Then buz sim split tone from Topaz Simplify 4.

[gary ellwein]

Nancy, you have captured my dorm room view at North Dakota State. Love the simplicity. I like the lack of sharp contrast at the horizon . Could you have captured a set of jack rabbit tracks?

[Judy Howle]

A very stark landscape with just the right processing. Love the color palette you chose. It has a wintry feel for sure.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Stark and bleak and the treatment emphasizes it even more. Brrrrr.:S3: You probably need to clean up the one white square above the snow on the metal fence post on the left but it's no big deal.

[Hazel Grant]

Amazing how the "old" and usual can be so modern isn't it? Nice capture.

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful effect! Looks like heat waves in the snow, but they aren't really "heat" waves, just temperature differential waves, so I guess they could occur at any temperature...??

[Dennis Bishop]

The simplicity of the image echoes your description of the area very well. Nicely done. I had the same reaction as Cheryl to the light rectangle at the first steel fence post, but I like the image very much.

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks all! I totally agree about that little white square. I saw it only after I posted and knew you eagle-eyed people would see it!

Gary, I wondered about those tracks and a jack rabbit makes good sense.

[Anita Bower]

I wonder if you considered using a different color for this simple image that captures the starkness of the landscape, a color that says snow, which the brown does not convey.