By Scott Shephard

Deb was driving as we made our way back home from a great week at the cabin in the Black Hills. We had stopped along the side of the road for reasons other than photography. But as I was getting back into the truck, I noticed the amazing color of the recently harvested wheat field. The clouds were dramatic. And then there's the band of blue sky. . . .  And yellow sunflower fields and fresh green sorghum.

I generally shoot landscapes with my 16-35mm wide angle lens but in this case I used my 70-200mm telephoto lens, which typically is used to bring things closer. But another feature of the lens is that it tends to compress a scene from front to back. In the case of this photo, the compression makes the stripes of the wheat field much more dramatic.

What do I like about this scene? The contrast between the general chaos of clouds with the precise lines of the harvested field. I like that blue and yellow = green. I also like that we didn't stop with the intent to take a photo but the scene demanded it.

Canon 5DIII 1/800s f/8.0 ISO200 180mm