Mad River Morning

A Quick Word About HDR Images

I will be doing a series on HDR imaging next month, but for today I want to just quickly mention my feelings on whether or not it is photography.  I have read some heated debates over the subject, and foolishly chimed in on a few.  I say foolishly because it doesn’t matter.  Let me repeat that in case I wasn’t clear.  It does not matter.  None of us take a photograph thinking about what someone will call it.  I hope not anyway.  And anyone admiring it doesn’t care whether or not some forum jockey living in his mother’s basement says it’s not a photograph.

I take the high road most of the time and call my final output an image.  It doesn’t matter whether I processed it using HDR or made a slight color change in Lightroom. It’s hard for anyone to fight the word image and it avoids having to deal with something that just doesn’t matter.  My end goal when I go out with my camera is to be able to come home and create an image I can call a work of art.

 

Mad River Morning

A few minutes after I snapped the photos of the deer fighting, I found this little pull-off on Rt. 100B in Moretown, VT.  This was a clear HDR image for me as the bright clouds from the rising sun would have forced me to choose between blown out (so bright there is no detail) highlights or very dark shadows.  This “image” is the wallpaper for one of my monitors at work.  I never wonder what to call it.

Mad River Morning

 

Tomorrow I go old school with one from the darkroom days.

 

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