High Dynamic Range Photography

In presenting my first, full-day workshop on nature photography, yesterday at Cox Arboretum, the topic that generated the most interest was my work with high dynamic range photography. This slide presentation was created from the images I used at the workshop to illustrate this particular creative technique with digital photography. I like to emphasize that HDR photography - the merging of two or more exposures of the same scene - is NOT digitally adding or altering the image. It simply brings forth a much greater tonal range amongst the existing elements within the photograph. The trick is not to be too "heavy handed" when applying the various settings for gamma, white point, luminosity, etc. when using the tonal adjustment tool.

The September 26 workshop at Cox Arboretum in Dayton went very well, despite it being my first time presenting a full-day program. I limited the attendees to just over 20 people. This was a good, manageable group. I will be presenting another full-day program on a Saturday this January, at which time I will probably concentrate more on digital workflow using Apple Aperture and various digital techniques using both Photoshop and Photomatix.