The famous Angel Tree

This is the Angel Tree in Charleston, South Carolina. It is several hundred years old, and it's one of the most remarkable trees I've seen. It is best photographed in overcast light, but if you happen to be there when the sun is shining, you have to use HDR to deal with the contrast. This is a 7-frame hand-held HDR composite. I included the sun in the shot, and I took the picture with a 16mm focal length. There were several other people in the picture, and I had to use Photoshop to clone them out. I also cloned out several signs and the yellow chain around the base of the main trunk. If you wait just before they close at 5pm, most of the other tourists leave the area. This is the best time to shoot unless you're the first one through the entrance gate at 9am. If you use a wide angle lens, though, the people end up being very small in the frame. This makes cloning them out quite easy to do.