LDR

Look at these soft delicate tones. Even this ugly utility box looks magical. This is overcast morning light. Flat light. Low Dynamic Range light. Here are some more low dynamic range scenes:

Sunsets
Sunrises
Portraits
Scenes in "Golden Hour" light
Forest scenes

In other words. Most actually beautiful scenes.

HDR

High Dynamic Range. Sounds good, right?

This is a an example of one of the few sorts of scenes I can really imagine wanting to take that actually has a high dynamic range. This is taken straight into a glaring sunrise with the foreground in complete silhouette. It was deliberately massively, mind-blowingly overexposed so that I could retain some of that foreground detail which, honestly, it would have been difficult to see clearly with my own eyeballs in that light.

Most scenes that are high contrast are unattractive and make bad photographs. These sorts of scenes usually look ugly in real life so it is the height of optimism to expect them to magically look great in a photo. In cases like the above where a scene has very high contrast but DOES look good we normally want to convey that high contrast feeling in the photo. This usually means letting a foreground darken to a black silhouette or letting the brightness of the bright parts burn to white.

Most HDR photographs that are successful celebrate the unreality that usually comes from excessive use of HDR software on massively high dynamic range scenes. This is, in fact, it's own artistic style. It's not a style I like but it certainly has quite a following.

I mostly shoot negative film. This capture medium has the capability to capture huge dynamic range in a single exposure. It also has very good properties at the extremes of its range. It "rolls off" organically (like our eyes do) and never "clips". This particular film, Kodak Ektar, may be the highest dynamic range capture medium on the planet which is why there is so much detail available in this crazily over-exposed scene. But most of the time, this extra latitude is best used to remove the worry about missing a shot through incorrect exposure. I do shoot carefully but with negative film I feel an extra confidence that when I press the shutter the shot is in the can.

First Thoughts

Photographs are like stories, music or dreams.

There are some that wash over you. You grasp them as a whole. They produce a mood and you are not aware of how or bothered by this.

Some photographs, however, invite you in. They are rich in detail and promise more. You want to count the trees or people or threads. You want to see into all of the little windows. You want to roam around that distant meadow.

Both of these types of photograph are important. Any camera can take the first type, although these can also be the most difficult and rewarding type of photograph to take. As humans, however, we are ever aware of our limitations. It is this second sort of photograph that taxes equipment and technique. You simply cannot put more in the finished picture than you captured at the vital instant. The traditional answer to this has always been bigger film in bigger cameras.

As such, I am now the owner of a Crown Graphic 4x5 inch press camera. This is the camera that you always see the news photographers in hats shooting in old movies. With more than fifteen times the film area of 35mm you can shoot the equivalent of 300 megapixel images given good modern film and decent scanning. In addition to this you have a more flexible camera which can use movements to bring more of the image into focus at once or to correct perspective.

So what is the flipside of all of this potential and possibility? Complexity. And this is also where the Crown Graphic really sells itself to the artistic photographer. In exchange for less flexibility than most "serious" large format cameras the Crown Graphic gives you a lot of convenience and assistance. For example, the camera can be set up in seconds since it becomes its own carrying case when folded up and has adjustments that allow you to quickly set up the camera "zeroed" and focussed at infinity. After all, this camera was made to be used handheld and often in fast-paced environments.

So how has this camera changed my life and my thinking? It has made me think. It has made me think about exposure. It has made me think about composition. It has made me think longer and harder on the question, "Is this shot worth taking?" It has opened my eyes and mind to the optical magic that lies at the heart of every camera but is usually hidden. The ground glass of a view camera is like a magic window. Through its frosted surface we glimpse dimly the very inner workings of light. All is laid bare, nothing hidden. We see the world backwards and upside down, just as the film sees it. We see at once the effect of every slight shift or tilt or swing.

We learn faith. As we take responsibility for our own film loading and unloading. As we take responsibility for our own exposure settings. As we take responsibility for dark slides, shutter cocking and correct sequences of events we learn the necessity of a certain discipline and of trusting in that discipline to deliver the desired results.

The Feel Of It

This is a good example of telling the story with something that illustrates the event better than the real thing. This is a great illustration of a drag race. However, the cars don't burn rubber like this in the race. This is actually the tyre-warming burnout.

Chopping Off Heads

What your father told you was wrong. It is perfectly OK to chop people's heads off in photographs. In this picture of a mounted warrior on a war horse I have isolated only a very small portion of the front flank of the horse's armour.

Isolation

A general rule of thumb is that you want to fill the frame with whatever is the subject of the photograph. Like all rules, there are exceptions. Here the isolation is illustrating the small size of the object and the bleakness of the surroundings. This is effective and possible mostly because there are no distractions in the surroundings.