A beautiful entryway

As you may have read in some of my previous posts, I am a big fan of doors, entrances, entryways - whatever you call them, or whatever form they come in, I just like them - that is, if they are beautiful or interesting in some way.  I guess it is something in me that likes the symbolic passage from one place to another, or something.  Beats me, I just know I like them.  Anyways, we recently paid a visit to some family members that live out in the Texas Hill Country in Horseshoe Bay (if you know the area) and I have always liked this entrance.  Isn't it beautiful?  I sure think it is.  The curve of the arch is just right, the river rocks in it are awesome, and the iron gate is a great touch - like I said, it's beautiful!  It was a cloudy day when we were there, and of course my camera was thinking it was HDR time, so I was looking for some things to shoot.  I wandered around a bit and found myself here, setting up this shot.  This was not long ago as I said, so the spring growth was starting on the flowers although the trees were still bare from winter.  I thought that made an interesting contrast and added to the overall image.

This is a 6 exposure HDR taken at f/11, with exposures from +2 to -3.  I merged them into an HDR in Photomatix and then made some adjustments in PSE around Curves and Contrast.