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Gallery Six -
HDR Images
There is currently a trend in
photographic digital
image processing called "HDR" - High Dynamic Range, whereby two or more
exposures of the same subject are merged using a software program to create an
image with rich detail in both the shadows and the highlights. This wider
dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of
intensity levels found in real scenes.
Unfortunately, the
camera cannot record scenes as we see them. A scene with both unusually
bright areas and dark areas can be handled by the eye easily through its ability
to automatically adjust to luminance levels. The pupils of the eyes open
and close according to the level of light and the optic nerve has impressive
range and latitude. Our cameras, despite their impressive technical
specifications, make exposures within fairly limited parameters, and are unable
to make similar
automatic adjustments. If it properly exposes for the dark areas of the
image, the bright areas will be so overexposed that they will not have any
detail and appear to just be a bright spot in the photo. Conversely, if
the camera exposes properly for the bright area, the dark area of the scene will
be so dark that no detail in the shadows will be visible and will be just a dark
spot on the photo.
A typical example is trying to take a photo of dark
interior area, but there is a large window to the sunny outside. If
the camera exposes for the interior so that it appears natural with detail in
the shadows, the window to the sunny outside will be so over-exposed that it
will be excessively bright in the photo, without any detail. If the camera
is adjusted to properly expose for the window and the sunny exterior, the
interior will be so under-exposed to be too dark, without detail.
Similarly with landscapes, a camera setting that perfectly exposes the sky
results in gloomy shadows; a camera setting that affords detail in the shadows
results in a burned-out sky. HDR is intended to
correct that, by merging the two extremes into a single image that is properly
exposed for both the bright areas and the dark areas.
Thus, HDR can be a useful means to
an satisfactory end result.
However, the technique is sometimes
carried far beyond its original intended purpose, and is considered by many to
be an end unto itself, thus creating controversy because of the unrealistic
pictures that it often times produces. Some
people who practice it overdo it, creating images with an instantly identifiable
"look", one that is bizarrely surreal. This tends to polarize
opinions: some love it, others hate it. There seems to be a trend
emerging to use the HDR processing technique to turn normal photographs into
something else entirely. Photography may have been the starting point for
these images, but it seems to be veering into the crazy world of fine art.
Proponents of HDR argue that the images look surreal on purpose. They
claim that all art is subjective and purely a matter of personal taste and
opinion. Unfortunately they also seem compelled to defend really bad HDR
images, of which there are many.
Too often the effect is way overdone.
The colors either look overly saturated to the point of garish or curiously have
very weak pastel shades. There will quite often be strange halos and a
weird sort of "blooming" effect.
Lots of people seem to despise the
use of HDR because of the unrealistic pictures it produces, and the surreal
result. Photojournalists and many professional photographers won't even
consider using the process, and photo services that supply photographs to the
news media absolutely forbid it.
Today's debate over how HDR
photographs look, and should look, revives a similar controversy in the early
1900's that photography itself was not considered an art form. So
photographers began to present images as if they were paintings of some sort,
Thus there was a rebellious split around the 1930's in the photographic world.
That was a decade when photography was divided between the "pictorialists" and
the proponents of "straight photography".
"Pictorialists" argued that
photography should emulate painted art, and that the actual scene depicted is of
less importance than the artistic quality of the image. Pictorialists
would be more concerned with the aesthetics and, sometimes, the emotional impact
of the image, rather than what actually was in front of their camera. Their techniques included the use
of soft focus filters, lens coatings, combination printing, and heavy manipulation in the darkroom to
make the printed image look like a painting. Despite the aim of artistic
expression, the best of such photographs paralleled the "impressionist" style
then current in painting.
"Straight
Photography" proponents considered edge-to-edge sharpness as the photographer's
main concern. They argued that photography should not ever try to imitate
any other art form. Keeping photography true to the purity of the "optical
image" was the aim of the group and therefore it was considered "straight" in
terms of the image itself. They considered it was simply in bad taste to
practice "pictorialism" - the making a photograph only to present it as
something more resembling a painting.
(As an aside, the great photographer
Ansel Adams favored the "pictorial" style in the 1920's, but began to pursue
"straight photography" thereafter, in which the clarity of the lens was
emphasized, and the final print gave no appearance of being manipulated in the
camera or the darkroom. Adams completely abandoned pictorialism and became
straight photography's most articulate and insistent champion.
Such was
the case of famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who battled for
establishing photography as art. Later he said "It is high time that the
stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solarplexus
blow...Claims of art won't do. Let the photographer make a perfect
photograph. And if he happens to be a lover of perfection and a seer, the
resulting photograph will be straight and beautiful - a true photograph.")
You be the Judge
The normal images below have been
manipulated for some degree of HDR effect. You can judge for yourself whether or not you like the HDR
result.
Rollover any
of the images below to see how the image is converted to an HDR Image
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Copyright © 2009-2011 Bob Graf.
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