Stuck in HDR

Trey Ratcliff works tirelessly to publish his blog "Stuck in Customs". It's good reading for anyone interested in post-processing their images. This site is an altar for HDR processing. Unlike Trey I'm not a big fan of the HDR technique itself, but it does have it's place in the grand kaleidoscope of photography and is a legitimate processing technique when used skilfully.

My basic problem with HDR as a post-processing technique is that you lose detail in the strive for detail. Too much information is pulled through and the human eye becomes clouded with irrelevant data. Photography is a delicate skill and for my taste most HDR images simply add noise to the scene.

HDR taken to the extreme is an art-form in it's own right. Not a highly valued art-form however, perhaps more akin to the acrylic painting on black velvet that grace the walls of a 1970s Chinese restaurant. OK, that's harsh, but that's my personal feeling. Every now and then an example turns up that is truly striking, but mostly the collected body of HDR works is something of a distraction to me.

Trey's work attempts to straddle the line between photography and digital art. It doesn't matter which category he is ultimately faithful to, at last not to me. I recently argued that the definition of art lies not in the subject or the media, rather the intent of the artist. Trey has something to say as an artist, so for me that makes his work art.

Do have a look for yourself.