There has been a lot of chatter lately about HDR... is it art, does it diminish the photographic talent of the photographer... is it too fake looking, why do it... and ON, and ON, and ON.....
For me, its just another way to express your artistic expression... if you do not agree, well, you are entitled to your opinion and you are more than welcome to comment below.
After talking to a lot of people, I believe what they do not like is the surreal looking grunge photos that almost mimic an Andy Warhol painting, but much MUCH more expressive...
Look at the photo above for instance... its a 5 image HDR edited in photomatix and CS5. It does not look too surreal, its not grungy. In fact it gives the image a complete tonal range and allowed me to get proper exposure throughout when I did not have a flash or reflector.
This was 5 images at f16 and 100ISO at 1second, 1/2 second, 1/4second, 1/8 second, 1/16th of a second exposures.
I created the HDR in photomatix, saved as a TIFF and then opened that image up in the RAW editor of CS5
Some non evasive dodging and burning, some minor color correction and a few further exposure tweaks and I had the base image.
I then took this image and overlayed the middle image of the original 5 and did some layering to bring back a bit of the original image.
When done I ran a 1.5 pixel high pass filter over th eimage to bring out some of the details on the truck and voila... a pretty decent looking image at 11:30am when the sun was high in the sky and washing out the scenes at the auto wreckers.
But hey don't jsut listen to me, join Rick Sammon and Tom Baker as they discuss HDR and lighting techniques on September 22, 23 in Kitchener, Ontario. See the details of the event here... http://www.photographers-lounge.com/seminars/rick-sammon/
If you have an opinion on HDR I would love it if you shared in the comments below.
Any software tool that allows a photgrapher to capture a unique mood or personal vision to their liking is valid art. Photography, like paint, is a tool. No great painter was required to use a specific brush or style to create. We should not limit our tools either.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Kevin. The included shot has a full range of tonalities but doesn't have that "gone way too far look." The software to create this is merely a tool to make a more tasty image. I liken it to salt for a chef. The right amount enhances the flavor. Just a bit to much ruins the dish. You've created a tasty dish here.
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