LIGHT AT THE END...

Canon EOS Rebel XS, Promaster 19-35 lens @ 19mm, ISO 200, f/8, 2.0 seconds

  Piggy-backing on Erik Kerstenbeck's recent post on his blog: What Lies Beneath, I processed a couple of images from underneath Crystal Pier that features the magnificent Kelp that was gathered around.
  I processed these in a trial version of HDR Express from Unified Color and was terribly excited about the results.  These were both done as single image HDR's with the grunge styling available in HDR Express. With this software, after you merge the 3 images (or single image in this case) you select a tone mapping and then a style. Both of which can be modified and saved as your own style or tone mapping settings. I like this software very much and will look at purchasing in the future.

Canon EOS Rebel XS, Promaster 19-35 lens @ 19mm, ISO 100, f/16, 15 seconds

  One thing that I was determined to achieve underneath the pier was creating reflections on the wet sand and water of the pier pilings.  In the above image I put the kelp right up front and got low down next to it to get an exaggerated foreground element.
  In both of these images the sunlight shining through at the end of the pier really added another element to them. The smaller aperture created a small sunburst that poked through as well.