Reaching Out

I saw this tree while on a small nature trail, near the beach in Atlantic Beach, NC September 2, 2006. The shot is composed of 3 separate vertical photographs merged to complete the whole tree. Various after effects were added in Photoshop. I think this is by far the photo that I have spent the most time on (mostly because I had so many "final" versions and couldn't decide which to choose.) Fortunately, coppertop79 helped me decide.