Ocean City Beach and Shoreline

Photo taken last year at Ocean City, Maryland.  On the left is the result after I tonemapped the original with Photomatix and then did a little additional

processing with Photoshop CS3.  The picture on the right is the shot I started with.  The 'true' scene is somewhere between the two.  Obviously I was not using a polarizer or ND filter.

Before I worked on this photo I asked myself if I would paint this scene if I were still working in oil or acrylic, and how would I want it to look.

HDR

Been spending some effort creating HDR images.  Here I used Photomatix's tonemapping feature since I only had a single image of the Boyd's Maryland, general store that I took in December 2009.  It was dusk and I wanted to capture the bare light bulb and its reflection onto and in front of the porch, the onset of darkness, and the colors generated by the setting sun.
I try not to get too surreal with HDR. Just get the details in the shadows and highlights, like the human eye would capture.