Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you’re feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that’s not far from the truth.
(dialog from the movie, The Matrix)
Picture it, a dark mysterious rabbit hole beckoning you to come down and explore it. A mysterious opening into an enchanted forest All of these things came to my mind in making the images in this post They are a reflection of reality in that these are actual physical patterns, yet spark imagination of something quite different than their material origin. . I became absolutely mesmerized by them. . These in particular for me are extremely surreal.
This is part of the excitement for me in exploring nature’s patterns. . . They already exist, sometimes in an otherwise benign environment, but when placed in the isolated context of a photograph, they can ignite excitement, enchantment, curiosity, and creativity. In these rock abstracts, I am absolutely fascinated that such designs are created over millions of years. They make me want to jump down the rabbit hole head first and see just how far it goes.
Going back through my archives I found a few images where I took a series of exposures because of a severe dynamic range issue. . I knew that this particular shot was going to be a little problematic for me because I really wanted the details to pop in the driftwood. 
. To get the driftwood bright enough, I know my sky was going to be overexposed. . I originally planned to expose for the driftwood in one shot, the sky in another and blend them, which is what I did at first I didn’t really punch the color much at first because it just didn’t seem to work well.
I decided to go back and see what Photomatix did for this shot beyond what I originally had done in Photoshop . I popped the color a bit more becasue there was so much detail to play with. The result is quite different, and to be honest, I like both versions The original one I did as a blend in Photoshop has a grittier feel to it The HDR one is more colorful, with clearer details. I definitely brought out more of the green plants in the foreground, where they fall into shadow in the original I can see where people might prefer one over the other, it is all a matter of personal taste. . Let me know which you prefer and why.
http://t.co/1xjuh7fT - posted on 22 hours ago
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