Rattlesnakes sure put a damper on things...

I took a run up to the West Fork of the San Gabriel River and Canyon late this morning just for a break from the gray skies of the LA Basin socked in again with June Gloom. Very nice day for a hike and to enjoy the warm sun up in the mountains. The downside is that every rattlesnake and its young'ns had the same thought. It is just no fun walking around when all you see is those critters, or worse hear them but don't see them. Ended my visit short as I was not dressed appropriately for meandering around snake country.

I did however have enough time before discovering those critters to get out a bit and enjoy the sounds of the river rushing over rocks and the winds whistling up the canyon.

HDR can go so many ways. Real or Surreal. Today I used it to fill in the shadows with detail normally lost when shooting realistic landscapes. Short version is I shot all today with the Canon EF Ultrasonic 20-35MM, mostly at max wide angle for the all encompassing view and distortion in angle to get as much of the scene as possible. I used Aperture mode for the metering, f16 and the camera took care of the 3 images +/- 2 stops to get me the Raw files needed. After running through Photomatix, CS2 and Virtual Photographer I dumbed them down and resized to fit here.

Enjoy 3 views of the West Fork of the San Gabriel River Canyon.