NIght Walk

I took a short walk last night. The reason for my walk is in a little bit of dispute. My wife came home from her jog with one of our dogs and said "I dropped the poop bags. Do you feel like taking a walk and looking for them?" This could have just been a simple case of not wanting to loose the bags and not wanting to leave plastic laying on the ground. However once I was on my way I called my wife and asked how long I should spend looking for these bags. She replied "Well your already out there so you might as well get some exercise ..." ulterior motive #1..."and since you are going to be right by the store you might as well pick up a beer for yourself." ulterior motive #2. Regardless of her motives she was looking out for me and that makes me happy.
Right before I left the house I thought I would bring my camera along hoping to catch the sun setting behind the railroad tracks that were on my way for my quest to find the poop bags. No luck on the railroad snset. I thought my photo op would be a bust it was getting dark so I resigned myself to just enjoy my walk.
Then I came across this little leaning tower. It looked like it could make a good picture but there wasn't much light... hey it's digital just take the picture and see what happens. I thought maybe and HDR process might work or I could just try to brighten it up in post, either way just take the picture. I didn't want to make it look like daytime so I figured brightening it in Photoshop would work if the HDR didn't. Photoshop has often failed me in the HDR arena and once again it fell short.
I can not place all the blame on Photoshop. I am sure some of it is operator error. I have tried some of the other HDR programs (free trials) and have had better luck so I think those are just more intuitive for me.
I was not going for the grungy or surreal HDR effect I wanted the that is that is a lot of detail for a picture taken at 8:30 at night effect.
As usual Camera Raw and some extra levels adjustments gave me a better result than PhotoShop's HDR.