This shot is of one of the nice big trees at Pullen Park here in Raleigh. I love the texture and feel of these trees. Most people at the park never give them a second look.

I shot this with the Canon 17-40mm L lens at 17mm. I then edited the picture in Camera Raw applying some extreme adjustments to get the dark gritty look I felt when I took the shot. This involved moving the Fill Light slider all the way to the maximum setting then increasing the Black slider till the shadows where just right. Moving down I then added the maximum amount of Clarity to really bring out the texture of the bark.  I opted not to use the BW conversion but instead just desaturated the image. For some reason with this picture it seemed to do a better job. I then added a little Duo Tone to the image and added some Vingetting to the edges. Yeah I know this seems to be a trend now and is used ALOT but I have to admit it really does ad a lot mood and drama to a picture. But it is now something that needs to be added to every picture.

Hope you all feel this picture the same as I did.

Peace