Ruins

When traveling out in the desert wilderness we come across many old ruins abandon to time. I am always intrigued by these old structures and enjoy scouting out the location. I am sure they were constructed by the early settlers that pioneered the West. This one was located in the eastern mountains of California. Quite often the light is harsh when we come upon some of these places and I have to deal with the lighting conditions as they exist. I was drawn to the dead tree centered in between the standing walls, but knew the intense sun was shining in my direction and making the overall scene harsh. I shaded the lens with my hat, and I used a HDR process where several images are taken at different exposures and compressed into one image. This process enables me to maintain detail in the deep shadow areas of the wall while still retaining detail in the brightly lit foreground.