Lake McConaughey, January 13, 2002

I was going through some photos I took the weekend of my father's funeral in January 2002. We intentionally stayed in the Madrid area for an extra day after the funeral to see family and friends and to show my wife and son the sights and sounds of the Cornhusker State. They had never been there before so we were determined to show them around.

Since we were staying in Ogallala, we took them to see Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughey, the big reservoir north of town. We crossed over the dam and were on the north side of the lake. There was a small area just past the dam where we turned off. It was a bright, but a windy, raw day. Something about the area intriqued me and I got out of the car and carried my digital and my video cameras with me. The way the sun was shining through the barren trees created an interesting effect. The cloud pattern combined with the blue sky appealed to me. I snapped several pictures, got back into the car and thought nothing further of it.

It wasn't until I got back to Chicago that I realized what a beautiful picture I had taken. I played around with the photo in Photoshop and discovered that the photo looks even more dramatic when changed to black-and-white. For comparison, here's the original color picture.