One morning while eating breakfast at the hotel in Gainesville, I was talking with someone who, of all things, was an international expert on prehistoric animals. The subject came up when I mentioned I was heading to the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens nearby. He told me of a little-known dinosaur that -- because of its peculiar diet -- may have escaped extinction in certain locales. It wasn't nearly as large as the dinosaurs that are better known, and its short legs prevented it from outrunning carnivores. Through evolution, it developed a hide that made it look like a decaying piece of a fallen tree. When one of the large dinosaurs approached, the disturbance was detected by the flexible sensors on its head, and it would lie motionless until the danger passed. From the scientist's description, I think what I saw later that day might've been one that survived.
Attachment 151366
(You do realize I'm just kidding, right? It was composited from a piece of a hollow fallen tree and a small, healthy palmetto. But the shots were taken at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens.)
Nikon D3s and a 16mm fisheye lens for both at f/22, and both were 7-exposure HDRs at 1 EV intervals
processing highlights
- Topaz Simplify -- saved watercolor preset
- Alien Skin Snap Art -- saved watercolor wash preset, Hard Light blend mode
- Three masked fills were used to recolor the palmetto -- brown, Hue; gray, Darken; gray, Color
- two Belle Fleur textures in three masked layers -- Linear Dodge, Vivid Light, Pin Light
- three masked black & white saved Fractalius presets in four layers -- Multiply, Divide, Multiply, Multiply
- Snap Art Line Art -- saved black & white preset, Multiply, masked
- Simplify -- saved black & white edges preset, Multiply, masked
- Nik Color Efex -- Tonal Contrast
