Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

Yesterday I received a great comment from Granny J…….

“I’m fascinated by the pix you’ve been producing, Rick. Very eerie. You have turned The Dells into a science fiction world.”

I like the fact Granny J found that the photos crossed into Science Fiction. I’ve found HDR photography to be surreal, hyper-real, and occasionally great shots that just plain boggle my mind. Some of the super famous HDR guys create stuff that hurts my brain. But I’ve never thought the photos have a sci-fi quality…until now. Granny J has a great point, we’re crossing some kind of major boundary with HDR.

The boundary is a pretty simple one. From photography to painting with light. HDR has some additional artistic license involved. You’re trying to create a more dynamic contrast in a photo that you can’t get with only one photo. 3-5 photos merged can really show you so much more contrast in a scene.

You might notice today’s photos are rather small. They’re not really, you can click on them to see a larger version. Just playing around with blog options you know.

Also, you might recognize “The Tree” from several of my sunset photos. I blame Bert for my fascination with that tree. In a few shots he took an amazing sunset photo through the tree. Fortunately since then I’ve taken my own as well. And now I’ve got an HDR of the tree that wowed me. This morning I merged the photos and I was thrilled with the results! Alright Bert, your turn my friend!

After all the HDRs I’ve displayed this week I thought I would take a step back and not shoot any more for a bit. But yesterday big clouds moved in. A weather front has taken us from the 80’s to the 60’s. Fronts always make for dramatic scenes, and this one made for dramatic HDRs!

I’ll tell you, with all my time at work I’m tired and sore. No, not lifting big stuff or anything. But my muscles have been so tight! My back is killing me, and it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep lately. The lower right section of my back is killing me. I find myself sleeping on my side a lot! And even the walk into the Dells last night was a tough walk.

You know how much I love the Dells, so I must be sore!

Fortunately I’ve got Friday off (Dr appointment), and I’ll rest during the afternoon…..unless I see a really contrasty scene that I must shoot.

Well, hope I haven’t overdone the HDRs. If nothing else I bet all the readers here now have a deeper appreciation of why I find the Dells so compelling. Instead of the flat photos of the area you’re now seeing a surreal view of the rocks….and when you walk among them they’re pretty surreal too!

Oh, tomorrow I’m thinking about blogging about my portable photo lab. Let me know if you’re interested in that topic or not (leave a comment). Otherwise I could write about the challenges of dish washing in an Airstream or something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 am and is filed under Notes from Gadget.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.