I was traveling through California’s Gold Rush country with my friend and fellow pbase photographer Tim May http://www.pbase.com/mityam ) and photographed him while he was pondering his choices on the rocky banks of the Cosumnes River. He stands in the shadows, yet the light from above illuminates his head as he weighs the photographic options in his mind. He is only a small part of the scene – most of the image is made up of rocks. There is so much to photograph in nature, and Tim’s task here is to isolate and define the essence of the scene before him. My task as a portraitist is to express the essence of my subject, Tim. He happens to be wearing a maroon shirt, which called attention to itself at the expense of the idea I was trying to get across in this portrait. When I converted the image to black and white, the problem vanished, and the image became stronger.