HDR photography: What’s the big deal?

HDR photography or high dynamic range photography can generate a lot of controversy in some circles. Especially in the online forums; mention that you have taken an image using HDR techniques and you will get very polarized responses. This polarization is kind of funny, in my opinion. Photographers will either love it or hate it, although there some that are a little bit in the middle, but basically very polarized, they either love it or hate it.. I’m not so sure why this is such a big controversy after all it’s just a technique, a tool, that the photographer can use to process an image. This tool can be used in many ways. To me, it is a tool that is used to enhance an image to the photographer’s “vision”. So what’s the big deal? In reality it’s no different than using any other tool. There are lots of tools, and different filters and plug-ins you can get for Photoshop. For instance, Topaz Lab’s “Adjust” and Nik’s “Color Efex Pro4”. If you adjust the sliders and play around you can make a gaudy looking highly saturated low contrast images that are no different than some of the HDR photography! On the other hand, those same plugins can be used to make subtle changes, it is up to the user to control. If you mention that you used the plugins, the response is usually “toned down”, but if you label it HDR, watch out.  It all comes down to the photographer’s vision for the image, the story the photographer is trying to tell; the message to be conveyed. How the artist gets to the end result is through the use of tools, and how much or how little they are applied, again is up to the artist and what they envision.

My theory as to why it is so polarizing is some photographers have a preconception of what an image should look like. Not necessarily, what the human eye sees, but what they envisioned the sensor or the media can successfully capture. Is this right? Is this wrong? The only right answer is if it matches the photographer’s vision. Sometimes there is fear in new techniques that are not “mainstream”. The HDR technique is no different than blending exposures, it is just the method and how it is finally processed.  Many photographer’s blend several exposures to bring out details in the shadows or to bring back highlights that were blown out in the single exposure. Sensors can only capture so much light, so much dynamic range. So that leads some photographers to have this preconception that if you have details in the shadows and if there are extreme details in the highlights, with a very high dynamic range then it must be artificial. And if you label it HDR, then their bias slams to the front, the blinders come on and the wall is built. Then post that same image and mention that you took a couple of exposures and blended them together and often you will get a lot of constructive comments. Not always but generally it’s a much more relaxed and much, much less of a reaction then if you label it HDR. So I think this is just one of those biases that photographers will just have to get over. I think that you’ll see more and more high dynamic range imaging. And how it’s processed is up to the vision and skills of the photographer. It is, after all, used to show what they envisioned at the time capture. At some point in time, sensors will be capable of capturing huge dynamic ranges but until that time we will have to use the tools that we have available.

Yes we’ve all seen extremes in this type of photography. I have seen a lot of images that could have been captured with a single exposure but yet they bracketed and processed it as a HDR image. They might have very low contrast, very highly saturated colors but if the image is what the photographer is happy with, what’s wrong with that? Who is to say whether that’s right or wrong? It may not appeal to the vast majority of viewers, but it doesn’t make it any less valid of an image or “vision”.

Then there are images in which a single exposure could never capture the full range of values, and this is where the HDR technique really shines. You can then express to the viewer more of what you saw with your own eye, if that is what you want to share. It gives you greater latitude to express yourself. It is not evil, it is not a trick or something that is going to go away anytime soon. It does not need to be feared.

The funny thing is that when you talk to people who are casual users of cameras, the ones not hounding the forums, or avid photographers, they are very accommodating to the use of HDR techniques. Perhaps because they are evaluating the image, and not the way the image was processed. Perhaps they are seeing the vision that the artist was trying to convey rather than bogged down in techniques or what they deem to be acceptable. Maybe they are not as influenced by preconceptions.

To paraphrase David duChemin (Craft and Vision – Great ebooks at great prices), it is all about “the vision and not the gear”, or the technique. So again I ask, what’s the big deal?