As you may have gathered from the now familiar sight of ‘barges on water”, last night saw me taking another late evening walk alongside the local canal. Once again the sky was pretty grey and less than ideal for the kind of shots I was after, but since i’m still familiarising myself with the area that doesn’t stop a nice walk to see what’s around.

The shot above is of the Clarence Mill in Bollington and it’s a combination of exposure blending and hdr. Normally i’d shy away from using hdr as it’s not a technique i’m a great fan of in its popularised form. Strictly speaking, hdr is simplay an image with a high dynamic range and i’m ok with that, but the tone-mapping that usually accompanies such images is something I think has far too many weaknesses for it to be used as a sole technique.

I don’t wish to be contentious in saying that (ok, well maybe a bit contentious then) but think of it like music. Would you rather be Simple Minds or David Bowie? Both had great success, but Bowie’s longevity came from the fact that he changed and adapted over the years. He moved with the times and developed his own style within that. I love some of the Simple Minds stuff in the same way that I love some of the hdr, but if you want to build a career for the future then I thnk it pays to concentrate more on developing a style in-camera that is your own, and adding or subtracting to that, than it does to spend hours in post-production tone-mapping an image.

Ultimately, technique is no more than a tool for the expression of what is inside you waiting to get out. Choose the tool that best suits the statement you want to make or the feelings you want to create. Don’t let the brush become the artist.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Photography, Technique, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.