HDRPortfolio.com
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you...
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you...
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
A Creative's Musings
. . . Matters of the eye and heart
. . . Matters of the eye and heart
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
An eternity in an hour.
William Blake
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
An eternity in an hour.
William Blake
On Photographic Realism
HDR photography pushes the issue of photographic realism. Let me be plain about my opinion, there is no photographic realism. Never has been, never will be. Only novices imagine that the picture they take is what they saw. The truth is they fill in the "blanks" with their imaginations, they return in their memories to the setting, the shot, and they complete the image with their emotions. The colors are different, the light is different. It always is.
This is as it must be. No camera, no method is equal to the challenge of getting everything perfect, nor should we want it. The point of art is to communicate moments in the heart. It is not about composition, technical accuracy, or anything else, per se, but effective expression. Our highest goal is to create emotion with our work that recreates the emotional message that the setting offers. Photographers see with their eyes, but they photograph with their hearts. Great photography communicates the depth of the subjective experience of being fully human. It is art.
HDR has expanded our palette. We now can take pictures, create images, that were not possible before without great gymnastics in Photoshop, if then. We can create luminous skies, open up shadows, work with great color depth, and interpret the same combination of exposures, many different ways. Often, there are many different completely valid interpretations, each with a different message.
Is HDR photorealistic? No. Is it art? Absolutely. Just like all photography, the best of it is very good, the worst somehow never communicates. HDR photography is another channel of expression. Just as every new school of painting was judged invalid, or trendy, each ultimately was accepted and incorporated in the broader stream of visual expression. So it will be with HDR photography, but to create art, HDR will be employed to deliver messages from the heart.
HDR photography pushes the issue of photographic realism. Let me be plain about my opinion, there is no photographic realism. Never has been, never will be. Only novices imagine that the picture they take is what they saw. The truth is they fill in the "blanks" with their imaginations, they return in their memories to the setting, the shot, and they complete the image with their emotions. The colors are different, the light is different. It always is.
This is as it must be. No camera, no method is equal to the challenge of getting everything perfect, nor should we want it. The point of art is to communicate moments in the heart. It is not about composition, technical accuracy, or anything else, per se, but effective expression. Our highest goal is to create emotion with our work that recreates the emotional message that the setting offers. Photographers see with their eyes, but they photograph with their hearts. Great photography communicates the depth of the subjective experience of being fully human. It is art.
HDR has expanded our palette. We now can take pictures, create images, that were not possible before without great gymnastics in Photoshop, if then. We can create luminous skies, open up shadows, work with great color depth, and interpret the same combination of exposures, many different ways. Often, there are many different completely valid interpretations, each with a different message.
Is HDR photorealistic? No. Is it art? Absolutely. Just like all photography, the best of it is very good, the worst somehow never communicates. HDR photography is another channel of expression. Just as every new school of painting was judged invalid, or trendy, each ultimately was accepted and incorporated in the broader stream of visual expression. So it will be with HDR photography, but to create art, HDR will be employed to deliver messages from the heart.