To Be Or Not To Be HDR

Whats Ahead

When people think about HDR photography, a crystal clear, full latitude picture may jump into their mind instantly.

When I firstly read about HDR technique, I looked at all those example photos, I did not find any appeal there to me. Definitely, I was amazed by its capability: digital photography finally beat Ansel Adam’s invention into child play. The laborious effort by Kodak, Fuji and Agfa really had gone to hell and forgotten.

Like it or not, I gave it a go and gamed on it. I gradually discovered a way it can fit into my own practice. Such as the above photograph, it dose not look like any other popular HDR, you may even think there was no need/ evident of using HDR.

Actually this shot consists of 7 different exposure individual photos. The advantage I get is I have a ‘typical’ flat lighting original to start with. Like a blank canvas, I can selectively tone, burn & dodge, or apply various filter effect. Then again I add texture and choose layering effects.

Ironically, some details I got from the HDR ‘rescue’, I ‘destroyed’ them later in the process. Overall, I am happy with the result I have here, and they could not be reached without the help of HDR.