Weekly Photo Challenge: Ornate

Some of the most interesting and ornate patterns can be found in nature.  Every year, we have an interesting combination of man made structure and natural elements that comes together in our driveway.  As the leaves pile up on damp days, they leave an impression on the driveway.  It only lasts a few days, but I love the patterns the leaves impress upon the asphalt:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

This was the image that I created from this year’s offering.  I started here:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

This is one of the original photos.  I shot a bracketed exposure and this was the darkest version.  I used Photomatix to create my HDR version.  The original HDR version looked like this:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/200

The final version, which is the first photo in this post has been cropped in Photoshop and then had a warming photo filter applied to it. I also sharpened the photo to bring out the texture of the driveway. In a few days it will rain and these impressions will be gone.

What do you think of these fleeting natural impressions? Do you have a version that you prefer over the others?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!