Sunshine Island

Looking downriver, I liked the strong light on the autumn hills backed up by dark clouds, but the distant hills were starting to look kind of brownish so late in October. Then I thought "Wouldn't it be nice if the Sun just shined on the island?" Hoping to get a low angle with fallen leaves on the water, I found a dry rock ledge next to a place where the water was just shallow enough so my fully-extended tripod legs reached the river bottom without submerging the camera. As the cloud cover increased, I wondered if another gap in the clouds would appear. Within 45 minutes, a narrow bright spot appeared on the distant hills, moving in my direction, and I got lucky.

Canon 50D
Sigma 17-70mm. f/2.8; Circ. Pol.
1/5 sec. @ f/16; ISO 100
Tripod; Mirror up via LCD focusing; 2-sec. timer
In an adjustment layer I used levels and highlight/shadows to tone down the brightness of the sunlit island.