High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is an evolving form of art that enables the photographer to capture and display the full range of light that can be realized by the human eye. Note that I say it is a form of art. I will not get into a long, protracted conversation about reality versus art because it’s a pedantic argument. To me, art is a representation of the world we experience and all forms of photography fall within this sphere.

HDR photography can be achieved through a series of steps in the camera and in postprocessing. These steps (and more!) are described in detail in Chapter 5, “The HDR Tutorial.”

This is the before shot.

This is the after shot that shows in plain view how HDR can accomplish in a photo what the human eye can accomplish on the scene. What a wonderful new world of photography this has become!

I’ve come to know HDR through a circuitous route. Perhaps the retelling of this winding progression will help you to begin the process of thinking about how the brain processes light.

Thanks to a few unlucky (or lucky?) cards dealt in the genetic poker game, I grew up blind in one eye. Most people experience the world in 3D, and their brain helps them to navigate the world using wonderful tricks like parallax and dynamic perspective. My brain could receive meaningful input from only one eye, so everything got wired up a bit differently. Consequently, for all practical purposes, I’ve spent my whole life looking through a camera lens.

My mind and memory have always worked in such a way to enable 2D vision to map action into a 3D world. I played sports actively: Soccer was just “different.” Instead of detecting where the ball was using 3D parallax, my brain would work out the diameter of the ball and map that to the distance from my foot. In addition, I would pay special attention to light and relate that to distance. The oversensitivity to light, 2D mapping, depth compensation, and memory worked together in an imperfect symphony. When you grow up with a distinct set of givens, you have no perspective on how it can be different from other people. I believe that everyone has a unique visual situation when growing up, and the way our brains were wired is worthy of introspection.

A fortuitous childhood fascination with computers and programming, thanks to my Uncle Richard, also prompted me to look at the world in an unordinary way. This blossomed into a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. From an early age, I’ve thought of the world and actions in terms of simple inputs that can be iterated upon to create complex patterns. I’ve also been fascinated with the inverse of this—the deconstruction of the seemingly endless complexity of nature into its constituent bits. This resulted in a desire to bring order to the entropy via visualization techniques.

Now, you don’t have to be blind in one eye and have a computer science degree to understand HDR. Throughout the book, I’ll explain it in a variety of ways and provide an assortment of examples. You will come to know HDR in your own way, and I hope my experience in these matters helps to get you on the fast track.

Little did I know when I started to refine my approach and create HDR images that so many people would embrace and identify with my results. It turns out that many people see the world like this, a vibrant, dynamic, and beautiful place that we can only hope to capture with the camera.

When I first used a DSLR camera, I noticed the resulting image was not how I remembered the scene. I very quickly began studying the fundamentals of HDR techniques and started to adapt the algorithms to something that made sense for me. Over time I arrived at a unique series of steps to facilitate a final image.

I did all of this as a personal experiment. I never expected it to resonate so widely with people. Now I realize that this style of visualization is in fact how many people remember the scenes around them. Many of us have a “romantic” memory, see a striking world, and attach all sorts of unexpected emotions and feelings to images. We can freely associate a beautiful sunset with smells, childhood, and the people we were with at the time when we saw a similar sunset.

The human memory is a tempestuous demon. Unbeknownst to us, the experience of one sense can evoke loosely related memories in another. I believe we all have, at least, a light dusting of synesthesia—the curious medical condition where one sense impinges upon another. From my personal experience, I know that the sound of ice cracking under warm Texas tap water brings up strange unfocused memories of the past. A quirky song from the 80s brings up softly shaped feelings of contentment. An unexpected scent causes an unfiltered sense of concern and wonder. I very much expect that the kind of person who would take the time to pick up a book such as this has had a very similar, yet unique, life experience.

All the preceding experiences mentioned are tied together in a wild network of memories and reactions in your brain. No one image stands alone. They are inexorably tied to your unique history and the memories you bring forward into any given scene. Like a many-tentacled cephalopod, your mind immediately starts wrapping around the image and rooting it deeply into previous experiences and associations you’ve made in the past. A rich network is built around the image, and the neuron connections are sometimes unexpected.

When you view an image in HDR, the various light levels ripping through your retinex (the hinterland betwixt the retina and the cortex) can have unexpected consequences. Through the years, your brain has become quite accustomed to seeing photographs on a 2D plane with limited light levels. You never really expect a typical photo to be as beautiful as being there. But when you see an HDR photo, the various light levels you experience as your eye traverses the image “tricks” your brain into thinking you might actually be there. This short-circuiting process means that your mind must immediately start mapping a new reality around these sorts of photos. Your mind will jump near and far as you build a new network of associations, feelings, and memories around the images. In other words, whenever you encounter something unexpected, your brain will map it to your own distinctive network of memories, which makes your experience of the new sensation uniquely personal.

Don’t worry; viewing an HDR image is not as hard as seeing an autostereogram (also called a Magic Eye)—those strange pictures where you have to focus beyond them to see the hidden image.

There is only one rule for “ideal HDR viewing conditions.” See it big. Here’s why.

Imagine you are standing inside the edge of a forest. Beyond the forest are a grassy plain, a pretty lake, and some distant mountains. It’s high noon, and dark but dappled shadows surround you in the forest. Think about what your eye does in that situation. It darts around like a hummingbird, painting all the various light levels into your brain in quick strokes.

When you look at an HDR image, you also want your eyes to move around. When seeing lots of light levels, your eyes darting around help to “trick” your mind into accepting many disparate light levels at once. If you have ever seen a small-sized or “thumbnail” HDR image, you may well have noticed that your brain may reject it because it’s strange to have so many light levels without the eye needing to move. It’s the same reason I’ve chosen to place large images in the book and on my blog. The small images that appear as the default size on the most popular photosharing sites like Flickr and Facebook are so woefully tiny that they really don’t do justice to the HDR image.

The nature of the StuckInCustoms.com site has enabled more and more people who see the world in this wonderful way to immediately engage in a community. They invite their friends, show their favorites to loved ones, and are able to immediately share their experiences with others. Everyone has their distinct set of experiences that they bring to each daily post. The photo is often just a starting point for the conversation. Many of the conversations are internal, personal experiences. Everyone experiences art differently, and that’s okay. Not everything is evocative or makes sense, nor should it. However, I do feel confident that the images herein will be evocative enough to encourage you to try making some HDR images.

I firmly believe that everyone in the world is creative and can create art. I’m also sure that the education system in a postindustrialized world of specialization-for-profit beats the artist out of most of us. If you happen to be part of an institution that encourages and nourishes the artist in you, consider yourself one of the lucky few. From the experience of helping tens of thousands of people realize this new art form, I am convinced that anyone can take the steps necessary to begin creating their own experiences using HDR imagery.

I cannot overemphasize the point that you can do this too! My simple tutorial in Chapter 5 can enable anyone to begin this fun process of visualization. Like everything else, it takes practice to produce better images consistently, but you will certainly be surprised by your first few attempts. This is a strange analogy, but it’s not that different from golf. Even the beginning golfer occasionally hits a shot that is personally impressive. Over time, that “hit” rate will increase.

The book is a wonderful launch pad and reference, and this experience can be expanded to the extended community. Don’t be scared: You’ll find that photographers are some of the kindest people in the world.

If you like photography, enjoy being stimulated by new ideas, and want to learn how to work with HDR photography, this book is for you. Whether you are someone who has an entry-level camera and enjoys taking photos or you are a professional with more lenses than your spouse knows about, this book holds something for you. Since this is a new and evolving area of photography, we all have new things to learn. Everyone, no matter if you are a beginner, an amateur, or a professional, wants to take better photos. This book speaks to a completely new style of taking photography, and there are lessons to be learned at every level. I’ve taught thousands of people to take their photos from the ordinary to the extraordinary, and I am confident I can teach you too.

The main part of the book—Chapters 2, 3, and 4—contains a portfolio of HDR photos along with descriptions, anecdotes, and various tips that describe how the photo was achieved. I’ve endeavored to include practical techniques throughout so that the format is pleasant for a straight-through read and perhaps as reminders for you to consider as you begin to work on your own. Chapter 5 includes my step-by-step HDR tutorial, and Chapter 6 discusses helpful pieces of software and other tools, as well as the equipment I use for HDR photos.

With this book I endeavor to give you all the tools and tricks to get you started or help you to further hone your craft.

Now, let’s start exploring the world of HDR together.