Redwoods at Big Sur, California in HDR (Photo of the Week 8.24.09) 

One of the things I look forward to each year is making my annual pilgrimage to Big Sur along the Central California Coast. Each summer, a group of 18 of us pack our SUV's and head north for some camping, hiking and serious adventure. Unfortunately, last year we had to detour our trip further north due to the fires at Big Sur. However, to our surprise, most of Big Sur and the camp grounds where spared from the fires and we where able to set up camp this summer.

Out of the group, I'm the only one packing cameras, lenses, and tripods. On occasion, I have my video equipment tucked away in my camera backpack as well. Needless to say, when I'm walking the trails with all my gear, hikers tend to slow down and stair at me with my camera gear in tote; it's quite a site with my tripod strapped to my backpack and me huffing and puffing up the trail. But I wouldn't trade it for the world as you can tell from this weeks photo of the week below.

Alongside the Big Sur river runs a creek. I had stopped to take a break when I was awe struck by the redwoods standing at attention a creek meandering through the trees. I sat my camera bag on the forest floor and quickly set up my tripod and camera. Because this part of the woods is dense, there where dark shadows in the foreground and extreme highlights in the distant from the light source; the sun. I photographed this image in three separate frames at two-thirds of a stop and later merged them together using Photomatix HDR software in order to get an evenly exposed image. The result yielded this stunning photo.

I think in the end, I may just have this photo printed on canvas and hung in my living room.