With rain on and off all day today and ominous clouds overhead, I decided to hit Valley Forge National Historic Site on the way back from photography at the Shofuso Japanese House and Gardens. The dreary weather can sometimes set a mood that a bright sunny day can never hope to reach and sometimes a dreary mood best fits the subject matter of war. This is the same canon at the Muhlenburg Brigade encampment that I shot back at the end of may. General Peter Muhlenberg’s Brigade anchored the outer line of defense at the Valley Forge encampment from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778. Although no battle was ever fought between Colonial and British forces at Valley Forge, over 1,000 men lost their lives here due to severe winter conditions, dysentery, scurvy and a host of other ailments common to the times.
For more information on visiting Valley Forge National Historical Park, check out their web site.
I created this image as seven RAW bracketed frames, combined into an HDR image and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro then used the Topaz Simplify plugin for Photoshop CS4 to give the trees and clouds a painterly quality before finally applying a texture to give it an antique feel.
Thanks to alicepopkorn for the use of the free texture file Magic Veil.
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