I took this shot during a dark and windy day right in the middle of a field, my feet and tripod covered in mud. The clouds were streaming by very fast and I thought this is a great way to play the single tree to the gallery with a long exposure. The sun was also breaking through which gave this bright spot in the centre.
The HDR was merged of 3 exposures (30, 8 and 4 sec) with my ND64 filter (6 stops) mounted. I blended the darker exposure in for the sky, but masked out the light beam. So you see it’s not completely artificial… 😉 I also set a high pass filter for the grass in the foreground and the tree and at the same time denoised the sky to get this contrast between the crisp green and the soft shapes within the sky.
Sudip Das's Blog 