Playing Around With HDR

This scene was made at John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor. If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know I love to photograph bridges and I love this one.

The scene was kind of bleak, so I decided to play around with it in Photomatix. It was a 3-shot combination at eV +1, 0 and -1. I combined the RAW files in Photomatix, then brought it back into Lightroom to tweak it a bit more.

While I'm not a fan of artsy HDR, I do like natural-looking HDR and this was the effect I was going for here. I've posted this before, but not on this blog. I would like a good critique from some of you other photographers out there. I'm particularly interested in what your initial impression of the shot is and any suggestions you can think of that would be helpful.

Thank you all in advance. I'm looking forward to your response.

Footbridge Lake Seminole Park

It is rare that I get a decent landscape worth posting; but more than one in the same place is unheard of for me. Landscapes are not my strong point. I really have to work at them.

I posted one yesterday and this one today. Both were taken the same day in Lake Seminole Park. It must be the beautiful sky and the combination of good light and of course, it was the scenery that made the image possible at all.

This footbridge spans over a stream that feeds two sections of Lake Seminole. The brook is loaded--and I mean loaded--with blue crab. At any given day, one can always spot the birds fishing for crab in the shallow waters of this stream. On this day, an elderly lady tied a half of chicken on the end of a string and flung it into the water. She pulled out crab after crab until an American Alligator chased her away. She said she got plenty for supper, so she didn't mind getting chased away. I guess the 'gator wasn't in the mood for sharing.