Landscapes in HDR

A few months ago a friend referred me to a client looking for landscapes for their new conference rooms.  I really valued this opportunity to get out of my comfort zone of shooting people and jumped at the challenge of adding landscapes to my portfolio.

The criteria were pretty simple:

• 18 images
• Color
• Mixture of natural and architectural
• Do not have any shots of a competitor

I was a bit surprised they were looking for color images as their existing photography is all black and white.  I asked them if they were interested in High Dynamic Range (HDR), which is very popular right now and although I would not ordinarily suggest a trend, I thought that since they were doing color for the first time in their conference rooms then these pieces should scream COLOR.      

Trey Ratcliff really has HDR down to an artful science and his tutorial was invaluable as I was working on my own shots.  With HDR you capture at least three images to be merged at different f-stops, typically -2, 0 and +2.  I did a broader range in my shots, but at minimum I knew I had to do at least 3.  Once I captured the images, I ran them through Photomatix with some additional post work in Photoshop CS3.

Here is my breakdown for the shot of the State Capitol:


Yes, it was a dry Arizona summer at this point, so the clouds were added.

And here is the final composite shot:

There is no better plug-in than Photomatix, I tried to do the HDR piece in CS3 through Bridge and later experimented with CS5 and I did not get nearly as good of an effect as I did in Photomatix.  I use very few plug-ins or actions, Photomatix is one.     

One last note: When shooting you have to have a tripod.  I used one that I have had since 1995, which is clearly an upgrade opportunity as it is aluminum and heeeeavy.

My personal favorites:

This is one of five large equestrian statues that enhance the Indian Bend wash as well as divert flood waters.  Hopefully this new system will prevent cars from getting caught in the water from the wash during the monsoon season.  My Mom recommended this location to me; her description "they are really cool."  My description is pretty much the same, they are REALLY cool. 

This is a night shot of Civic Space Park which is in the heart of downtown Phoenix in the central corridor.  There are large posts of lights that are illuminating the sculpture and it is a really cool piece. 

I found this pecan grove in Queen Creek just south of Phoenix.  It was a bit of a drive and while there my feet sank into the irrigated mud more times than I care to remember, but I really like the shot.

Additional selections from this series can be viewed on Flickr.