Westcave Preserve

Westcave Preserve is an Austin city park that lies south and west of the city.  It is a beautiful place.  I had the good fortune to get invited by my buddy Pete Talke of Places2Explore to go on a photo tour there.  It was a nice morning and we met there early to get a good start on some HDR photo work.  We hiked down sort of into a canyon and then you come across the grotto.  There is a ~40 foot tall waterfall that cascades over the cliff and into a beautiful pool of water.  It is gorgeous and made more beautiful by the fact that you only drove a little while to get there.  It reminds me of Oregon or Washington, sort of like a rainforest feel to it.  There are ferns growing everywhere and it is so green.  I had to take down the green color in the photo because it was overwhelming.  It's really that green there!  If you are ever in Austin, I recommend a visit!

This is a 5 exposure HDR taken at f/11 with exposures from 0 to -4.  I merged them into an HDR in Photomatix and made some adjustments in PSE and Aperture.  Enjoy!