I realized we hadn't had a header image by co-administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies in a while, so I asked her if she had any pictures we might use. She sent me three of her "Sweet Valley Sunrises" images. While they were all beautiful, the one that I picked for the header blew me away: the shadows, the fog, the crepuscular rays, the overwhelming brightness of the rising sun that makes me squint every time I look at this picture.
This is actually a crop of a larger image. I wasn't able to use the entire thing due to the aspect ratio requirements of the header - we want the header to be about one and a half to three times wider than it is tall, to allow the entire header and some of the top post to fit on the screen at the same time. This is actually a wider ratio than a standard photograph, so some cropping is called for with almost every image. Usually there's a little something at the top and/or bottom of an image that can be trimmed without losing anything essential, and often a careful crop can actually focus the image, emphasizing a particular element that might otherwise be less obvious. In this case the image was actually done in portrait mode, taller than it is wide, so nearly one third of the image has been cropped out. I tried to do the edit in a way that retained the initial impression I had when I saw this image. Here is the original, uncropped image:
Do you have an image you'd like to see used as the NEPA Blogs header for a week? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com!
