This is one of many photos where I just pointed the camera into the sun and hoped for / counted on interesting results. The sun light eats through the tree branches like its burning a hole in the photo, or perhaps in the world itself. And then there's that bit of green lens flare down there at bottom-center. I suspect, though I'm not sure, that the photo appears a shade darker than it actually was and that when I first got it out of the camera it was a lot darker.
If it hasn't already been done, someone should do a history of lens flare in photos. It's not something you're going to get in a painting since it is an artifact of camera optics. I have no idea when I first noticed it in still photos, but I first noticed lens flare in the motion pictures Easy Rider and 2001. And when I say "notice" I mean that I saw the effect and explicitly noted it to myself in the form of a question: "What're they doing with the camera?"
The first time I noticed it in a photo of mine I was annoyed. Then I remembered those (and later) films and decided, OK, I can put up with it. Some time later I decided to seek it. And then still later, only two or so years ago, I decided to up the intensity to the point where getting a 'viewable' image out of the photo became an interesting process. And it was after that that I discovered shaky-cam – night-time shots with moving camera and long exposure where the representational nature of the image all but disappears in abstract patterns of light.
