Meditation

This image is me trying to make the best of a bad situaton:

The lake is Little Sea on Studland Heath in Dorset, a place which I have been meaning to visit and photograph for sometime. Although I had been scoping the general area for a few hours in the late afternoon, I had not actually made my way to this lake yet. I was with a friend and we made the (honest) mistake of going for an Ale prior to sunset and before knowing exactly where we were heading. This made us a little later than I had hoped....
When we had finally hiked along the wrong path and doubled back to the lake the sun was already pretty low in the sky. It seemed that the only view within walking distance was at a bird hide on the waters edge.
The view was less than ideal, I had hoped to see more of the west-facing bank. Added to this was that the only framing I could make included the fallen tree on the right which seemed to draw the composition away from the scene.
All I could think to do to make something of the image was to include the setting sun (which initially I had composed to avoid) and attempt to create a sunburst as it dipped behind the trees. Of course I also wanted the adjacent bank to still be lit by the last of the light so timimg was important. Including the sun really pushed the dynamic range of the scene and what had begun as a simple capture with maybe 4 or 5 stops of light turned into something entirely different! Although I used a 2 stop soft graduated filter diagonally across the lens I still ended up having to shoot 3 frames a stop apart which had to be blended together to make a coherent picture.....

I would imagine that the likes of certain of my watchers can see the faults in the processing - it's a little rough.

"Meditation" because after the sun had gone we sat inside the bird hide a watch the sky slowly get dark whilst enjoying this peaceful setting (with a further beer of course).