Daily HDR Photo — Textured Castle

Today’s photo is a shot of Okazaki Castle and the surrounding forest. It really seems like the forest it looks. Trees surround the castle on most sides, even growing out of the old moats. I don’t know if the original castle was surrounded by so many trees or not. It makes taking photos of main keep a little difficult sometimes, but it does allow for nice views like the shot below.

Okazaki Castle is the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who conquered Japan in 1603. I seem to mention him alot. It’s hard not to. Japan seems, at times, obsessed with the Edo era (1603−1868) which Ieyasu founded and during which his family controlled the country. Ieyasu is highly regarded — no where more so than in his hometown, Okazaki. Practically every old building I stumble across claims to have had some history with Ieyasu.

This isn’t the original castle where Ieyasu was born, however. The original castle was torn down in 1873. The government of the time didn’t like castles too much. It was rebuilt in 1959. A full time-line here.

I edited the photo a little differently today. I’m not a huge fan of the textured look, but I think it’s worthwhile to push yourself to sometimes do things you aren’t crazy about. This one turned out pretty well and I enjoyed making it. I might play around more with textures in the future. What do you think?

Misc Photo info

Click on the photo for a larger version, and go grab the original at flickr. It is completely free: Download it, share it with your friends, do whatever you want with it, just please give me credit and link back to this page.

Site Edits

You may have noticed the layout of this website has changed a lot lately. I’m tweaking little by little to get things exactly how I want them. I test on Safari and Firefox, but if something doesn’t work right for you, please email me about it.

Spread the word

Did you enjoy today’s HDR photo? Pass it on then, share it with others who might enjoy. You can click the “Like” button at the beginning of the post to share with your Facebook friends, or use the “email” button below to send it to someone. Thanks!