August 2025.
Fargo, North Dakota.

We often have breakfast at a local restaurant on Sunday mornings when we are in Fargo for the summer. On a Sunday in August, the restaurant was bustling, and we had to drive much farther into the parking area than usual. I found an open space and pulled into it, facing the back wall of an adjacent business. That’s when I noticed the black swirls on both sides of the large tree trunk between our car and the building.

It wasn’t windy that morning, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the swirls in shades of gray were created by the branches dragging against the metal wall as the wind helped the tree provide its artistic impressions.

About the photo: I captured the image with my Samsung S25 Ultra in Pro mode and processed the resulting DNG file in Luminar Neo. The edits were minimal: I added a touch of Supercontrast and adjusted the exposure to balance the cloudy light on the tree with the relative shade on the building. No AI processing was involved in this exposure. Click the image to view it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I invite fellow bloggers to join in by creating their own Cellpic Sunday posts. There’s no set theme—the only rule is that your photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or other mobile device. The second rule is simple: link your challenge response to this post or drop a comment here with your link so others can find it. And remember, despite the name, there’s no penalty for sharing on a day other than Sunday.

John Steiner