Rainy Day HDR

Rainy day HDR

Once I a while I play with HDR, but not often.  All images are art, and a such they each have their own beauty, but I don’t connect with heavily processed HDR images.  This was a day where clouds would be a challenge; the clouds were low and flat and very bright, and it would be hard to retain much detail in the mountains while keeping the cloud exposure within reason.  I did not have any split grads (oops) and so shot some bracketed images and called it “in the can!” (sorry, have watched too many Peter Lik shows lately!)

This is one of my favorite drives here in San Benito County.  Browns Valley is a historical cattle ranch deep in the rural area of the mountains.  Browns Valley Road winds through the valley before climbing a steep ridge and dropping down into the Panoche Valley.  Along this ridge Bald and Golden Eagles, as well as Peregrine Falcon are a common site.  At just over 3,000 feet above sea level you can find snow in these hills.