I taught Shakespeare's Macbeth for many years to sophomores in my early days as an English teacher at Watertown Senior High. When i am in or nears woods on evenings like the one pictured here, I can't help but think of one of Macbeth's best speeches in the play. As the sun sets on the night he knows his colleague and friend Banquo is to be murdered he says
“Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.”
I sensed no evil and saw no crows on the beautiful Maryland evening I took this photo. There was just the crunch of leaves, the clicking of the shutter and the sound of very distant traffic on highway 50. It was a great night to be wandering about with a camera and tripod.
(And in case you are wondering about Raitt and Krauss, both sang versions of a song entitled "The Dimming of the Day," which I think is a kind of sad love song. Lyrically and emotionally it does not fit this photo. But it did give the post its title."
Canon 5DIII 1/13s f/8.0 ISO250 16mm