Rising Sun on Woods and Snow (Digitally Modified Photo)

Rising Sun on Woods and Snow (Digitally Modified Photo) Originally uploaded by randubnick

This image began as one of the photos I took last week with my phonecam during an early morning walk. When I was taking the photo what I noticed was the way the sun looked through the woods. What I didn't notice was that the snowbank in the lower right corner was typical March snowmelt, covered with accumulated mud and dirt from the street. But this was my favorite photo of the set, so I wanted to fix it. I tried cropping the photo, but that changed the composition too much. So instead, I opened the image in Painter IX and cleaned it up using digital bleach, followed by digital pastel. I only worked on the bottom right corner of the photo; everything else is just as it came out of my phonecam. Is this digitally modified image now further from reality, or closer to it? Well, it is certainly less "real" than the original photo, but in a way, it is truer to the way the scene looked to me when I saw the morning sun through those trees.