This shirne is a Japanese Shinto shrine dedicated to the local gods.

The Japanese shinto beliefs are based around the animism or the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects ....small shirnes like this can be found through out the country, even in remote places.

For this panorama i have tried making a full HDR pano for the first time.

There is quite a bit of debate in digital photographic circles about the merits of HDR. One side says that HDR is over done and doesn't look realistic with overly saturated colors etc. The other side says that by using HDR photographic techniques ( bracketed exposures blended with software ) photographers are able to capture a range of detail in the shadows and highlights that aren't possible in standard photography.

Personally i haven't practiced much with HDR techniques but i have found times when it has been very useful in high contrast situations but over all i am not a huge fan of HDR. These days i am doing alot of printing and in my experience HDR images have inherent problems with lots of chromatic aberrations and artifacts. 

I like the HDR effect in this pano which gives the forest a real ethereal feel but ....i feel like i am cheating !