Clinging to Life - Coastal Live Oak - Santa Barbara County - California

I believe the tree in this image to be a Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia), here in Northern Santa Barbara County. Traveling along a back road, we came across this tree on a hillside after recent rains. Green grass was growing, the sky was blue and cloudless, yet the evidence of drought was still present on this multi-century old tree. When the average rainfall,(16 inches), comes these evergreen trees are full of leaves and remind me of broccoli florets when viewed from a distance. This was 2018, the county was in year six of a seven year drought. The tree was benefitting from the recent rains but I wanted to emphasize the way I felt about the trees and their circumstance. I desaturated the sky and the grass, sharpened and denoised, cropped and applied a vignette to achieve this look. I used Capture One 23 and ON1 Photo Raw 2025.