HDR edits

The other day Andrew told me he really liked the style of some photographs we were looking at.  Here's one of the pics I totally stole from facebook to share with yall...(shhh, don't tell)

I love the irony of this picture...ok, now go on over to Riker Photography and show him some love!

So, Andrew likes this style...he calls it the artistic fantasy style.  I call it HDR, lol!  Well being the total photography pro I am not, I totally just knew I could imiate this style with Picnik...the free version...with the edit "HDR-ish".  One day I'll have fancy software and such...I just keep telling myself ... it's not the camera (or the editing software) that make the photographer but it does help.

Ok...here are a few of my attempts to use HDR:

I'm not really loving this one now ... I think this edit trick is best used on landscapes or far off photos...

I thought this looked kinda cool in black and white too

I'd love to hear what yall think about these edits ... considering starting a blog hop/challenge with using different editing techniques that are out there, you know, the ones we don't use on our everyday photos...hmmm...what do you think about that too :-)