Righty-ho, first of all, top work everyone. As I said before any of them could have taken the win.
So in posted order - my thoughts.
DayDreamer... Unbelievable how much colour you've managed to bring to the sky, if only it had been like that on the day. Also I wonder if you've pushed things a bit further than the file would let you. The frost on the seat has gone a bit blue and green and purple (sure someone knows the correct term here).
Brian... Really caught the feel of the cold morning - the frost on the seat is still there and there is even detail in the trees and midground over the edge of the hill which no-one else has found (as well as you)
. I understand the reason for the crop, but I'd still like to see more to the left.
The Drift... Great job Shaun, takes the prize for detail and feel of the bench, got the cold frosty feel spot on. A very bold crop though.
Flying giraffe... Top editing Neil, detail on the bench, cold feel, colour in the sky, boxes all ticked for me. All pulled from the single file it seems too - no HDR?? Great work.
SymmetricalOCD - Ben, I see where you were going - think a layer of snow would have been needed to carry this off - brought an eerie night time feel to it.
I'm just trying to put off the inevitable - decision time... hmm.
Simply for making the best translation into the scene that I wanted to get from this shot,
the winner is Neil (Flying Giraffe).
Quite similar in fact to my edit below...
I made 5 exposures using View NX2, (-2 to +2 EV).
Adding sharpness, bit of contrast, and colour boost to each.
Merged them in Dynamic Photo HDR with as natural look as possible. (Exposure blend rather than HDR was my aim).
Then actually thought that the sky was too orange in my edit, so overlaid it over the jpg with opacity down to 75% (in GIMP) to reduce the effect of the edit.
Shaun - a lesser crop may have been all it would have taken for me to pass the baton to yourself on this one. (sorry).