WINDMILL MORNING

Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS, Tamron 28-80 lens @ 28mm, ISO 100, f/8.0 1/4 sec. 

  Usual Monday mornings are spent getting kids ready for school and getting myself off to work. With New Year's Day being on a Saturday this year, I got this morning off. So I used the available time to try and find some places to shoot. Turns out, I only had to go around the corner.
  The windmill in the picture is another one of those landmarks that I pass by every day. And every day I say, I am going to take some photos of that windmill, but never do. Well, this morning I stayed true to my word.
  This reminds me of the American Plains like that of Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri. Really something you don't see much of anymore, but still a great American symbol.
  Would've liked to have had some clouds behind it, but there wasn't a one of them in site.  The large tree on the left, the windmill, and the branch that creeps in from the right all seem to form a bracket around a lone star that was still hanging around just before sunrise.
  Tried to do some HDR processing on the photo but everything that I liked turned out with a halo around the trees and windmill.  When I looked back at the raw images, the silhouette against the purple/blue sky stood out more so I went with the original image.
  If you look real close in the bottom right corner you can see the Veteran's Memorial American Flag flying that is in downtown Madisonville.