The Naked Trees of Winter

The Naked Trees of Winter

When we think of beautiful trees, we usually think of them fully dressed, that is, with leaves. But I've come to appreciate the beauty of naked trees in winter :)
 

This photo was tonemapped using 3 exposures, (+3, 0, -3), in Photomatix high dynamic range processing software. When tonemapping using this software, you can choose to use it to create a surreal effect to the image, or a realistic one. This one tends to the 'surreal' side.

Fountain Nature Center, Fountain, Colorado

Because this shot was not bracketed when I took it, I used the Photomatix ability to create 2 different exposures from a single 8 bit JPEG, converted to a 16 bit TIF file, and combined the 3 exposures for the processing.

There are those who are 'purists' about HDR, and believe it should only be used to bring out the dynamic range in a photo, and not to create an image that is 'other worldly' or fake looking, so to speak. 

I think of photography as an art form that encourages creativity.

I ask you, who laughed at Monet, or Van Gogh about the lack of reality in their paintings? Well... maybe they did.

Well, who's laughing at Van Gogh now???  ;)

The following two photos were taken in Red Rock Canyon, Colorado Springs