Introduction

Photography is as much about light and equipment as it is about human perception—while it is nothing like reality. Form, contrast and subtetly are some of the elements that make art out of a picture but light is what makes a picture. It is the way the photographer uses the limitations inherent to each medium in combination with the human perception that makes the difference between a snapshot and a work of art. HDR photography opens a new domain in photography by providing a new set of limitations that are completely different to those, for instance, provided by printing on fine art paper. The sheer amount of light available in HDR photography is indeed a unique opportunity to recreate lifelike experiences and depict high contrast scenes without having to compress the dynamic range of an image within the traditional formats (e.g. paper, SDR screens or projected slide films). It is not so much a question of projection vs. reflection (a classic argument between printed images and projected slides or monitors), which provides different options to convey impressions and emotions, but a stunning new opportunity based on a new archetype. While printing large format fine art images and presenting them in a gallery provides a unique opportunity to create an experience, HDR is an up to date way to reach a large audience with your work.

Perception

This image is arguably the best and easiest example to show how our brain works. Sight is the combination of the light perceived by the retina and the interpretation that our brain does of the raw information, which can be quite impressive as the tiles A and B are absolutely identical! There are many factors that influence our 'sight' or better said perception. Some depend on our habits and others are embedded in our brains. We recongize human faces without being aware of it and strongly enhance their visibility, exactly as it happens with the tile in the checkerboard under the shadow. Great painters and photogrpahers are aware of the inner workings of our brains and constantly make use of these enhacements to create great paintings and images. It is my opinion that the content of an image as well as the presentation (e.g. low-key, high-key and black&white) work together to strongly influence our mood and how we react to image itself. That is why HDR plays a new role but does not exclude the other forms of presenting images: it simply provides a new experience.

HDR Photography

I have always been curious about new technologies and eager to exploit their potential. Exactly as it happened back at the end of the last century with digital photography, today I find myself empowered to present my pictures in a way that was simply inconceivable until yesterday. Be warned however that the hardware and software that enables HDR Photography is still emerging and there is no standard yet. As of the end of 2023 all MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and iPhone Pro (from 15) offer stunning 1600 NITS of HDR maximum output. This is nothing short of incredible and enough to experience pictures in a new way. Arguably the standard requires 2000 NITS, but there are very few displays able to achieve it and definitely not for a consumer compatible price tag. Things have changed for the production of images with the new versions of Photoshop and Lightroom, as they both support HDR natively and no longer as a beta feature; on the consumption side it is still quite complex and despite videos in HDR are now more and more standard (even Instagram greatly profits from that), pictures still are in a sort of work-in-progress status. Nothwithstanding the hurdles consuming HDR pictures is a great experience that gives a level of realism that completely changes our expectations... for a certain type of images. So what is my experience with HDR applied to my pictures? there are actually three different categories of images that I found: one that includes all images that where great in SDR and simply different but equally great in HDR; another that includes images that I never liked in SDR and I kept only out of curiosity about what the future may hold for them; and the last about the images that absolutely do not profit from HDR because of their Gestalt.