Warm

Yeah, it sure did work there! Beautiful.

Yes, it sure is a very beautiful picture.
As a photographer, I am still very much a “purist”, possibly because I switched to digital rather recently and in the good ol’ (or not so good ol’) days of slides, I strongly opposed any kind of trickery, like filters and sandwiches (where you’d put two slides on top of each other to e.g. place a singing bird of one slide in front of a setting sun on the other slide).
To this very day, I don’t have photoshop.
When I see pictures like yours however, I start to vaguely consider editing digital photos as an art form. We’ll see… Thanks for posting (or rather altering) the picture, it really is very nice.

Thank you Nancy.
Thanks Morena.
I know what you’re saying Jochen. And I thought much the same way, however.. All photography is the manipulation of light, formerly it was done with the choice of film and in the darkroom. There really isn’t such a thing as a “pure” photo. Back in the days of film different films saw the same scene differently, take Kodachrome and Fujichrome for example. Or even black and white film. In the darkroom exposure could be adjusted, different parts of the photo burned or dodged. Part of the reason we do that is because our minds fill in pieces of a scene better than a photo can.
The main reason I haven’t warmed to HDR is there is an unnaturalness to the photos. To me anyway. I think it is the way the colours get rendered.
I use photoshop all the time, frequently to crop the photos (another technique from the days of film) for better composition (although I still try and pay attention to framing and composition while shooting the photo). Sometimes, especially now that I’m shooting RAW, I adjust exposure, or saturate the colours more. Again, in the old days you would use a different film. I find now that with more saturated colours and more contrasts I’m getting more of the feel I used to with Kodachrome (RIP).
I think with me the line gets drawn with altering the reality of the subject (adding objects etc). And although I’ve done that (a large full moon above the House by way of example) I’m very clear about telling readers that that what was done. Most of that is just playing around anyway.
Thanks David.

Thanks Kimberlee