Before there was color photography, or when it was still limited and difficult and not commonplace - in the early 20th-century - a subject like this but in black and white might have been purposely left just off focus to lend a dreamscape to the landscape - to blend the parts of it with a pictorialist's shimmer - like the vision that may come with or after crying. Here Sykes has framed another grand subject - the mountain - with an intimate close-up. It is, as noted, all a little soft on focus. The colors are mostly warm but still subdued. The light - at sunset most likely - we know is perfect without knowing why. The mountain I thought was Adams but now I doubt it. Behind one of the branches is a ridge almost as distant as the mountain, and the size of that ridge makes this mountain smaller than Adams, I think.
