I took this shot while I was hiking around Torrey Pines State Reserve located near La Jolla, California. I had gone here a couple of times before and could never find this spot. This spot kept showing up in numerous pictures that I had seen on various photography websites that were taken in this area and I tried each time I went to find it on my own to no avail. The funny part is that I had found it on this particular occasion because I took a brochure from the start of one of the trails and viola, there was a picture of this spot plastered on the front cover. I quickly followed the designated path and finally found this spot, and it only took me about three visits. One unfortunate but easily overcome obstacle was that you had to stay in these little wire fences and couldn’t go exploring. But of course I went exploring, I couldn’t miss up on the opportunity to get this sweet shot. I had to find a weird way down because the actual lookout was sort of on a cliff. I wanted to show the lines that were all along the ground from what I imagine to be caused by erosion of some sort, so I got down real low with my camera. I was actually on this weird corner thing while I was taking this shot which was extremely uncomfortable and awkward but once I checked out these photos after it was worth it. This images is a combination of three exposures that were taken at -2, 0, and +2. I used Photomatix to combine the photos then brought them into Photoshop CS6 and masked away a lot of the HDR look in order to make a more natural photo. I pretty much just used the HDR for a seamless transition of the sky and foreground.
