This blog is composed of about 90% High Dynamic Range photoraphy and my posts in particular on tWp are about 100% HDR work. As the technology grows in popularity and in age, people’s feelings seem to get more and more polarized where HDR is concerned. I was reading Scott Bourne’s Photofocus and was struck by a quote he pulled from the PixelatedImage regarding HDR photography. Scott, by way of David, boils it down as follows
“Here’s the interesting thing about HDR images – a lot of photographers seem to dislike them, it’s a love it or hate it kind of thing, sadly. But the general public, the non-photographers out there, love them. And we should be asking why”
I suspect the popularity of HDR is part of the reason some photographers dislike the genre. It’s popularity stems from its ability to generate arresting, electrifying images chock full of eye-candy (this can be a good or a bad thing, like any photo effect).
Here’s a secret – I don’t care for the term HDR. Over time I have come to dislike the term HDR for the same reason that I disagree with the folks who want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and haul out the purists’ standards, march in a line, and preach about the glory of Velvia and shooting in JPEG. The term defines nothing. High dynamic range is a relative term – all photographs on an LCD monitor or on photo paper are capable of the same dynamic range. It is the photographed scene that varies, what we call HDR is the application of technology to sample more fully that range.
Some tone mapped images, that is JPEGs you can see on photo paper or on this screen, generated from .hdr radiance files, look silly, ugly, overdone, lousy. Some images taken straight out of the camera, taken with and processed in an Associated Press-approved manner look silly, ugly, overdone and lousy. The difference is that by using the term HDR we label tone mapped images, DRI images, Enfused images, etc.
To quote Mike Myers in Wayne’s World quoting Soren Kierkegaard, “Once you label me, you negate me.” The reality is that HDR, DRI or whatever silly names we have for technologies that enable greater creative flexibility are here to stay. Drop the label, look at the photograph, decide if the image succeeds in its intent. Once, long ago, before tWp, before Photomatix, and before Flickr, I would spend my free moments on photo.net or the Luminous Landscape, reading about how to mask two different exposures together to get a properly exposed sky and a properly exposed foreground. These efforts were tedious and, by and large, fruitless. I’ll continue to do HDR, regardless of how others feel about it, because the devil may care.
I saw the bust of Frank Lloyd Wright outside of Austin Gardens in Oak Park – a statue which is normally creepy in its own right as the artist opted to leave the famous architect’s eyes empty. On this night, the snow had filled in the sockets and as I walked by, I literally shivered. This is why I love “HDR” photography, because no technological limitation now lies between me and my ability to capture how I *feel* – the eerie green light glinting off the bust and the serene and haunting twilight behind it.
Photo by Justin Kern – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
by Justin
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