HDR Photography

High-dynamic-range, mainly known as HDR, images are a type of imagery made out of a set of photographs taken at the highest and lowest exposure rates. When using HDR you can create images with great detail and a variety of colors. HDR photography, used right, can make a image pop and it can give you an image that looks just like the scenery you are viewing with your own eyes. I enjoy HDR photography because it's a great way to get the images you want, like I said before, it can make a image pop and look amazing. However, when using HDR it's also possible to make your images look fake, it can add to much color or a glow to your photos. Also, when using HDR Photography it's better to have no movement in your images because it can create ghosts, and though you can get rid of them it won't always look so good.

To create an HDR image you first need to find a scenery that you want to capture. You need to then take several shots of the scenery, all at different exposure rates. It's a good rule of thumb to start at negative three and work your way up to positive three. After you have all your photos you put them into photoshop and under File you will see "Automate", under automate you will click on "Merge to HDR Pro". It will let you find your files and you then press okay, from there you can edit your HDR photograph to make it yours. That was the longer process, some phones and other electronic devices have the option of letting you take HDR photos. Using electronic devises that can do this is easy and you don't have to do much except take the photo, your electronic devise will take photos with different exposure rates and merge them without taking much time. The only bad part about this is that it doesn't allow you to edit the way the HDR photo turns out.

Below I have three of my HDR photos. The first one is just a landscape, I wanted to catch the colors of the sky. Making the bright colors of the sun really pop and also have that contrast with the darker areas of the sky. While taking this photo I found the sky more interesting than the foreground, so i moved the horizon line lower in the photo so I could capture the sky better. In my second photo I have a HDR portrait. The main focus is to be on the person in the photo and their eyes. I used leading lines to point and draw more attention to her. In this photo the background is darker and it helps to make her pop more. In my last photo we needed to merge the photos and add a inspirational word. It was kind hard to create this last picture because of the position she's in. So, following the rule of thirds and made her eyes match up the the right higher third to make seem like she's looking out to the left. I chose the word dream because it seemed to match the photo and gave a yellowish color to match the sky.