Cellar Holes

[manumuskin]

I am new here and fairly new to photography.My best friend and i are long time explorers of woods and swamps but he has always been the photographer and I the navigator.I have a new job now that keeps us apart (shift work) and am now in the position of having to take my own pics..
I just purchased a Canon powershot sx130IS and have been contemplating photographing the many cellar holes that dot the woods around here.I have tried this in the past with other cameras and they have failed to show depth and the hole ends up looking like squared off rock walls.I have searched the forum and find no discussions on this.Does anyone here have experience in bring to lif the places people used to live and are now lost?
Remember your talking to a neophyte here.I have some experience in touching up photos with zoomshare but not much.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Al

[dlambert]

Do you have any examples? It sounds like some off-camera lighting might help, but it's sort of hard to tell without seeing what you're talking about.

[manumuskin]

I have no pics handy and had the opportunity to take some today but we have six inches of snow on the ground covering up much of the structure on the holes.When the snow melts I will take some photos and post them here.I'm sure I have old photos somewhere but quickly got discouraged with the results and gave up on it.I now have what seems to be a much better camera and if i can gain some knowldge I may be able to make it work.
These cellar holes are in the woods so I try not to take pics on sunny days because what appears like a nice pic to me is either under or over exposed in sunlight so iu am going to try when the snow melts on a cloudy day and see what i come up with.The main problem is the photo usually doesn't show the depth of the cellar,perhgaps if I tried in sunlight in evening or morning and tried to catch the holes when shadows aren't interfering with contrast.
I am experimenting with panoramas,maybe a panorama from in the cellar hole would show the hole better?I may try a 360 degree panorama and see how that works.I have to take about 50 shots to make one because I have no fish eye lens but they have been turning out pretty goo,haven't tried it on a cellar hole yet.
Al