Melanie - Landscape

I never go out to take photos in the rain because I hate to get wet, so this falls into the something new category.  I visited different locations including a river and got rain drops, birds, and  tall reeds in the water, but liked this shot the best.  This is a view from a friend's house up on a hillside.  It had just stopped raining by the time I got there.  My reason for going out in the rain was to get some good cloud shots during the wind and the rain.  The foothills had low clouds over them and they were beautiful.  I shot some closeups of the foothills so I could see the low clouds in them.  I also love the rusted old farm equipment hiding in the grass as an added treasure.  I hadn't really noticed the little wild flowers at first because I was concentrating on the clouds, wind movement, and positioning the farm equipment.  I think I acheived the ovrerlapping.  The little bit of blurring is from the wind.  This photo was bracketed and turned into an HDR.  I only started shooting in raw for this class, so converting these to an HDR still feels a little intimidating.  I'm just not sure how much to move the bars for the correct exposure compensations.  I know I should take a class. -  Aperture setting, ISO 160, f5.6, wb cloudy, 18mm.  I used a tripod and a remote.  I tried the equipment to the left, I zoomed in on it, I zoomed in on the foot hills, I shot vertical, I shot it with less sky, etc.  I know that the photo is almost broken in half by the sky/land ratio, and should be in 1/3 portions, but I really liked all the clouds and kept it there.  I think this was a good breaking of the rules and hope you agree.  I would like to purchase ND filters.  That might be my next wish list item.