I broke my own rule and made this HDR image without a tripod.
I bet when most people imagine Florida in their minds, the image is of a white sandy beach with palm trees. However, such places make up only a very small part of Florida's land mass. In fact, most of Florida looks like the above landscape -- flat countryside with a mix of trees scattered about. Spanish Moss hanging from live oak trees should be as iconic a Florida image as the coconut palm tree.
I assigned myself a personal photography project for 2010 -- "Sunny Florida at f/11" and the above photograph is my first official shot in that series. If you have no ongoing, personal photo project yet for yourself, I highly recommend it as both a means of having a photography goal for the year and to make a number of images in the same theme that could potentially be used for a gallery exhibition!
On this particular day my goal was first to photograph birds, but when I realized my Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens was not going to get me nearly close enough, I thought I would have to change the day's shooting goal to landscapes. Then a friend let me borrow a Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G lens and Nikon 2x Teleconverter for the day so I was able to photograph birds after all. Still, I could not resist breaking my own rules when I saw this landscape scene and photographed something outside of my theme for the day and even worse handheld an HDR shot!
If you have a personal photography project for 2010 describe and link to it in the comments below.