…and what it has to do with photography. And what not.

These thoughts have been rising when reading book called The HDRI Handbook 2.0: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists, written by Christian Bloch.

As a background information I must say, that since the first times I’ve seen HDR images I have mostly hated them, their so called artistic hdr-look. HDR has appeared as a trendy and fashionable trick that has spread ugly color casts over mediocre photographs.

On the other hand, HDR of course is only a technique, a mthod, and as such not good or bad itself, but can be used in different ways. So, despite my antipathy towards majority of HDR images I’ve seen, I’ve been quite interested about possibilities of HDR. So I picked up a book to learn more.

Feelings after reading one fourth of the book?

First, Bloch is quite thoroughgoing in his book. Technological issues, theoretical base of HDR, monitors, software etc. is introduced in-depth. And that’s good. But…

Second, as Bloch is going deep into technological things and stuff, it seems he has little to say about HDR from photographic (or even wider: visual) point of view. Very little. After reading fourth of the book, I must say that as a photographer I’m quite disappointed – I’ve gotten a feeling that this HDR-thing is mostly a hot thing for technologically oriented digital image makers.

Bloch makes this appearance even worse by picking examples of “HDR-artists”. In their interviews they (probably unintentionally) reveal their thin knowledge and education of photography and visual culture. If you are processing photographs to images with weird, unnatural, oversaturated colors and call that artistic expression and try to point similarities with classic genres of painting, you are missing the point and making a fool of yourself.

But, like I said one fourth read – I’m still looking forward, optimistic…