I returned to a favorite hike of mine over in Caesar's Head State Park as autumn began to fade into winter. The Frank Coggins Trail is part of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area, north of Greenville, SC along the end of Hwy. 11, the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway. There are a number of trails in the area, and the Frank Coggins Trail is a nice, moderate hour-long trail. These pictures were taken as the light was fading, and I took the opportunity to play around with some filters in GIMP (www.gimp.org), my photography software of choice.
As the sun was fading, the surrounding mountains could be seen through the shadowy trees. 
I enhanced the blue of the sky through the trees, to emphasize the starkness of the leafless branches against the clear sky. 
This is a much darker image, but I wanted to emphasize the multiple branches that were barely visible, while keeping that dark tone. 
I loved the way the sections of this trunk twisted around each other, and I enhanced the colors just slightly to offset the effect of the fading twilight. 
These fungi were very inviting, and I played with a LOMO filter just to give it that spotlighted vignette style. 
The last of the fall colors through the trees at the top of a small waterfall didn't need much but a little color enhancement to really capture the beautiful warm colors of fall's end.
