This afternoon I ventured out in the cold, dangerous, and remote tundra…. Okay okay, so I was actually only a few minutes from the big local shopping mall in New Jersey.  Anyhow, I was scouting the location as the sun slowly descended towards the horizon.  A photographic frame came together in my mind as I walked across a small frozen pond.  Why was I walking on the pond in the first place?   Bodies of water often offer a clean and uncluttered midground for scenic photos and quite often rocks or vegetation on the periphery can be used very effectively to anchor the foreground of an image.

Below I have uploaded my final output jpeg, compromised of a 3 exposure HDR blend.  Below that is a view of what the individual exposures looked like.  Last is a snapshot of my Canon T5 DSLR and Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD lens in position for the capture.

Sun beams pierce the wooded fringe of a calm pond on a cold February evening. This is a three image #HDR blend and the #photos were taken with the #Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD lens and the Canon EOS T5 DSLR.

A quick look at my three unprocessed #raw exposures. The #dynamic range of the #Canon T5 sensor is approximately 12 stops of light, which is not quite enough to record details in the highlights and the shadows of the scene.

A peek behind the scenes, my #DSLR is atop my tripod and positioned very close to the ground. The petal shaped #lens hood of the #Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD can greatly help reduce flare from shooting into the sun.