Sunday morning, I was walking back to the campsite after finishing up at the lakeshore when I was struck by how the rising sun was shining through the trees. I had already been taking pictures longer than I had intended—I'd told Juliette I'd be "just a few minutes" but ended up crouching by the waterside for probably 20 minutes—but even so I had to stop and look at the light. I probably stood there shooting for a good five minutes or so, but eventually I overheard my friend James say "No, he's right over there" and realized it was time to finish up.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-55mm DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Focal length 55mm, aperture f/22, shutter 1/30 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: Daylight WB preset, crop to 4x5, curves to recover highlights and increase midtones.

Thoughts for improvement: I'm actually pretty happy with this one. I'm still not sure how to coax a nice, defined sunstar out of the lenses I use, but I still like the way the sunbeams look in this image, even though there is also a bit of ghosting. I particularly like how the sunlight adds some separation to the leaves in the foreground, so they still stand out distinctly even against the dark and somewhat busy background. If I'm being really nitpicky, there's a little strand of what looks like spiderweb hanging between two of the leaves at the top right, which I probably should have brushed away before taking the shot. And then I guess I might also prefer if the sun were just a tiny bit more to the right, but keeping the same crop and placement of the subject.