Photos

This tree and building has been photographed many times before. I'm sure most people know all about the trees growing through the ruins around Angkor Wat, so I'm going to concentrate on the technique, not the story. I'm not sure if this is even allowed on TE, but this is a combanation of two photos. The first is exposed for the building and fore ground, and the second is exposed for the sky.

It's a great technique that I often use for subjects like this. Start with a tripod mounted camera and bracket starting with the proper exposure for the fore ground and stop it down until the the sky is properly exposed. Later, in photoshop, lay one picture on top of the other and use the history brush to merge them together. This is a great technique for when a graduated neutral density filter would come too far down into the fore ground.

PS - As PHIL noted: I didn't do a really good job with the overlay on this one...I should probably go back and do a better job. If you look closely around the tree and in the leaves on the right side you can tell its been overlayed...Also, if you're looking at those places, you'll notice some AC fringing...Something else I've been too lazy to fix! Thanks!

PPS - The whole "Alien's Foot" thing comes from my 4 year old niece. She said it looks like a really big alien is stepping on the building! I was blown away! She's completely right!