I decided today that I would go for a walk in the local parkland.  I have my permit to take photos in there now, so off I went with my camera and tripod.  It was an overcast day, so I knew I wouldn’t get the speckled light that a bright sunny day would give me, and it also meant that I didn’t have to worry about what time it was.

The area is not great now, lots of dead trees.  Not sure if the drought got them, or whether they were all planted at the same time and now they are all dying.

As I was walking back I followed a side trail and came across this fence.  I had to walk beside it, and while I looked at it, I remembered that rule about using things like fences to lead you into an image.  I don’t know if this one does that, but I liked the old next to the new.  I like the remnants of the dead tree reaching out in the sky.

I also wanted some landscape images that I could use to practice my HDR with, I also wanted to follow Dimitrii’s tutorial on HDR and Photomatix, you can find it here.  I discovered it recently and found it very straight forward and easy to understand.  You have to like that.

Here is a tree that has died.  It will eventually fall down, like so many others.  It will become home for rabbits and other wildlife in the area.  We don’t get to see much of the other wildlife, they sleep during the day.  Makes perfect sense really.

This image didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.  The dead prickle bush didn’t stand out from the background as much as I hoped.  I don’t mind the image, but I do wonder if maybe I should have gone nt a lot closer and had more of a detail shot.  They are always there, so there is no reason why I can’t go back some time.

I have processed all these images using Photomatix and then done post editing using CS5.  I really like the way they have come out and am beginning to understand why everyone recommends Photomatix for HDR.