Gnarled Tree and Summer Skies

[LaFoto]

I looked through my photo files and found that one which I once called "Play with Photomatix HDR" - I made that one back in 2007 when I played around with that programme a little.

And among the photos there, I found this one.
Loads of pp-steps have been applied here, but it is too long ago for me to remember what all I did. It must at one stage have gone through Photomatix, too, else it wouldn't have been in that folder. What do you say about black&white HDR (which is just tone-mapping, as far as I know, made from three differently saved TIFF-files of the same "photo")?

 

[Torus34]

Yes!

 

[abraxas]

Very nice.

 

[Antarctican]

Niiiice. Love the gnarly tree silhouetted against the sky, and the dark horses in the foreground. And of course the spectacular cloud formations.

 

[invisible]

Great, love this image! The tree set the tone, the clouds lent a hand, and the B&W conversion did the rest.

 

[kundalini]

Very nice shot. I like the wee horseies........

If I were only so lucky to "go back" and find a few jewels in my archives.

 

[Atlas77]

Very nice shot. In my opinion the tree looks distracting. but that dosent matter still a great shot!

 

[LaFoto]

Hey, thanks all for looking and speaking up.
Everyone's entitled to their opinions, even that the gnarled tree is distracting, more than anything else, and maybe it is in this wide angle photo I went for at the time... though actually the photo is mostly about the tree. The horses were a plus that had never been there ever before (at one point in time, this meadow was for young bulls, but that was back in 2005 or so), as were the clouds, of course!
Seems like the really severe pp I gave this photo works!?!?!

 

[abraxas]

...
Seems like the really severe pp I gave this photo works!?!?!

I think so.

 

[Al-Wazeer]

It's just beautiful

love it!

 

[dmatsui]

The sky is a bit to dark for my taste, i feel it distracts me from the foreground and thus the subject. Its possible its just the big black clouds on the top of the frame that bother me.
Other than that though i quite like it, the horses i believe add to the photo quite well aswell as the gnarled tree.

 

[grafiks]

Very nice. A shot closer to the tree with the clouds behind it would have also been great.

 

[Rere]

Though I like it like it is, I'm wondering what if would look like it the dark clouds were cropped. This might bring more attention to the tree and horses. I agree with the other poster that the dark clouds are a bit too dark and distracting. It's almost like there are two centers of interest. You might have two good images here.