This is the first post on my new blog…
We had a major snow and ice storm in the Atlanta area recently and I was looking for things to photograph, being all stir crazy, etc. My wife Susan had me install a rain chain on the roof of our screened in porch recently. The freezing rain completely filled the inverted cups and made a wonderful subject to photograph. After much trial and error and HDR magic, here is the resulting photo:
This image is made up of 3 photo’s combined using Adobe Photoshop CS5 and it’s HDR Pro 2 tool. Each exposure was shot 2 stops apart, handheld, using my trusty Canon 5D and Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L lens. Here are the original three exposures.

There was some slight movement from frame to frame because these where handheld. But, Photoshop did an excellent job aligning these shots. I was not trying to go for a realistic rendering with this image. I wanted to try to push the envelope a little. The surreal glow really makes the shot.