Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, California, near San Jose, is a lovely place to visit any time of year. A week ago autumn colors were fading, but not gone. Looking east in mid-afternoon part of the garden was in full sun and part in the shade of a hill. The widely varying light suggest combing multiple exposures to make a high dynamic range image. The time I used the the Photomerge™ Exposure feature of Adobe Photoshop Elements™ 8.

Silver Lake is a small lake in the mountains near better-known Mono Lake. The Lakes are east of Yosemite National Park in California, and as of last week the pass through Yosemite was still closed by snow. We drove south from Tahoe on the east side of the Sierras. Apparently not many people do that, because things were, shall we say, quiet. There were a few signs of early spring, but the aspen trees still had no leaves. It must be around 8,000 feet at Silver Lake, because aspens don’t grow at much lower altitudes.

There are challenges for the photographer on days when puffy clouds cover the sky. At worst the subject will in the shadow of a cloud. At best the lighting will be uneven and potentially confusing. An opportunity in the situation is to get a bright subject against a dark background. This involves waiting for the clouds to cooperate and light the subject while dimming the background.