Live Oak

Steve,

I do not have any experience with infrared, but this works for me. It looks like the tree is covered with some snow, altough I know that in FL that is not the case

Cay-Uwe,
It's the chlorophyll in plants reflecting large amounts of infrared light that gives the appearance of snow. Once the chlorophyll in the leaves is gone, as in the brown leaves on the ground, the amount of infrared light reflected is considerably reduced. I may be missing the real snow after moving from NY to Florida, but at least I'll have the appearance of it in my photography.

This looks almost like an Orton effect. The chlorophyll snow is actually Resurrection fern. I like this, but I like the natural (in color) better. 

Hi  steve  I  like  the effect you achieved   on the tree  , and  love the form of the branches.

Albert Darmo
Canada

I think this is beautiful Steve, the tree is shaped perfectly for the composition, or vice versa, and your processing really brings that out.  

Very cool, Steve.  The IR rendered this in a very interesting manner and the subject was an excelllent choice with tons of character.

Hi Steve, a wonderful shot - great choice to go IR - the residual colour really adds to the image - great processing!
Cheers, Mark

Thanks for all your comments. A few notes on the processing:
Three raw bracketed images (0.7ev) where gently combined in HDR Efex Pro for the sole purpose of capturing all the highlight and shadow detail. The reuslting image was then white balanced in LR to produce the desirable tone. The overall clarity was considerably reduced to simulate the Orton effect. I then used a brush to bring back the clarity in the main branches of the tree. Slight crop from the right side and little bit of burning in around the edges. All done in LR.

Steve: I've always enjoyed your IR images and this one is no exception. Marvelous subject superbly rendered and presented.>=))>

A beautiful photo of a splendid tree, Steve. The infrared have covered of snow the tree creating an original image and an impressive atmosphere. I love the photo.

I really like the flow of the branches. It is a tree that deserves to be photographed under many different conditions. In general I am not an infrared aficionado, but here it works quite well.