I was out in a local trail area called the Enduro Trail. Its part of the Kisatche National Forest area in Louisiana and its geared towards ATV usage. And this year the majority of the areas had gone through a controlled burn to “help” mother nature along. I’m not a big fan of controlled burns. Mother nature did just fine on her own before we came along to “help” out. Anyways getting off of my soap box the purpose of my trip was to get out of the house and take some landscape & HDR images as 2008 has been a slow year for me photographically speaking. Winter Mushrooms is the 1st HDR image I’ve processed out of the collection of photographs taken from that session and I’m loving it. The image seems to really stand out in its coloration without being surreal as so many images on the net seem to appear with the HDR technique applied to them nowadays. So yea, this is it. HDR applied realistically.

The thing that bothered me most about hurricane Gustav was the fact that it turned out to be a big non-event.  I know that its good for the populace of Louisiana & Texas and such.   When days and dollars are spent on such an event you build this expactation of the raw power of nature being unleashed apon you and in the end, when that doesn’t happen there is this sense of dissapointment.  None the less Gustave did leave me with a few rare colors in the sky and for that I am gratefull.

This duckweed was taken at Chicot State park at around noon. It was hot with no wind out but the photo demanded to be taken…

So here we go, round 3 with WordPress. I keep coming back to WordPress again and again. They must be doing something right. This image was taken at Chicot State park in Central Louisiana near Bunkie. A lot of photoshop work later this was the end result and I have to say I really like the dark moodiness of it.

The thing about photography for me is always the image that I wasn’t expecting to come out of my camera.  I’m still at the stage in which most of the shots I expect will come out and at the same time I’m hoping they will come out.  The skills are getting better….. but a lot of it is still luck and location.

This is quite possibly my favorite image in my entire collection.  Taken from the seat of my vehicle one day at sunset while stopped on top of the Toledo Bend Dam.  The colors in the sky and the whole mood of the image are just amazing and I feel blessed to have witnessed the event.