The more I worked on it the more this render refused to going anywhere. Oh well.
Composited in post - adding some (20% or so) of one render to another. The first used primarily a big luminous sphere for EXR/HDR lighting and the second render using primarily a low angle sun. Largely unnecessary but I like fooling with the EXR lighting.
HDR lighting image from probes of Vienna by Bernhard Vogl
Models :
trees -Xfrog - jcinBama
dead wood - Mandrake
heather - Ulco
sage - Robert Truxler
sycamore leaf - Gary Poole
cart - stectoons
Components thumbnail attached - light colored image is the HDR lighted one. The luminous sphere provides light intensity and direction, but that luminous light cannot be used to cast shadows beyond objects, just shading confined to the objects (as far as I know). Turning shadows off on a standard sunlit render gives somewhat similar results, but as I said I like fooling with the HDR idea. The HDR renders go very fast probably due to the luminous light not triggering shadows.