This is a shot of the Shipka Memorial which was built in the 1930s to commemorate the Bulgarians who died during the Shipka Pass battle in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

If you've taken a look at the 'original' you'll see that I used two images for the final version: an HDR, and the darkest exposure from a three shot hand-held sequence. The processing was reasonably straightforward, but a bit time consuming insofar as I blended the sky from the darkest shot from the original exposure sequence. I also switched to Lab Color mode to mute the colours in the final version. I did think about producing a more photorealistic version, but after watching The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with the kids this Christmas I decided that a more Narniaesque version was appropriate. As always though, let me know what you think, especially if you think a more natural result would have worked better.

Finally, if you're a friend of mine of Facebook you can take a look at Libby's album from the trip. She got some great shots of the kids in the snow.

captured camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

2.26pm on 28/12/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 24mm f/8.0 1/320, 1/160, 1/80 manual n/a evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor