Above is a side by side comparison showing a detail from my previous post of a single RAW image file processed in Adobe Photoshop (left) alongside the same detail from a tone-mapped HDR image processed with Photomatix, using tone compressor default settings (right).

I like this image, enough to think it’s one of my best of 2011, but felt my best exposure looked quite flat, it definitely needed some work. Since I typically bracket my exposures when working from a tripod, I had a set of exposures to work with, and my first instinct was to combine exposures to create an HDR image. I hoped this would bring a little snap to the image; and it did, but on closer inspection, detail in the clouds was getting blown out, and there was noise in the foreground water of the falls.

Another view of Eagle Falls, above Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, California. Here I've tried to replicate the look of Photomatix HDR tone compressor tone-mapping in a single RAW image. 

Eagle Falls, Lake Tahoe, California

Eagle Lake HDR Panorama, Desolation Wilderness, California

This one just squeaks in to my best images of 2011, mostly on account of doing an adequate job recording my first visit to the edge of a beautifully rugged wilderness. I was in a place I’d never been, its grandeur familiar yet wonderfully new to me; a feeling I never tire of. This image was created on my first foray into California’s Desolation Wilderness in July. I had come to Emerald Bay to photograph Eagle Falls and Lake Tahoe at sunset, one of the classic Lake Tahoe views. I’d given myself a few extra hours to make the short hike to Eagle Lake. I was in a great place with better than decent light but found it difficult to put a personal stamp on the scene, and I was running out of time. I decided my best chance for a successful image was to create a clean panorama, this meant heading to the other side of the lake where I could get a more open view of the scene and eliminate all distracting tree silhouettes from the frame. I worked quickly to create three different panoramas from slightly different places along the lakeshore. This is the third one, the one with the cleanest edges and lines. Shot for HDR, this panorama is made from 21 frames, seven sets of three. HDR tone-mapping gave me better blending in the sky between frames by creating more uniform exposures for the panorama segments, and helped open shadowed mountain and foreground exposures. I also used my trusty Singh-Ray soft step graduated neutral density filter to help balance the sky and landscape exposures. The panorama format goes a long way toward expressing the feeling of expansiveness I felt at the time, and helps to elevate the image, if only by a hair, above the documentary snapshot.

Weston Beach, Point Lobos, California

Edward Weston is a photographic hero of mine. His, Pepper #30 is a favorite example of a photograph that achieves the level of timeless art, which is rare in any medium. Pepper #30 is inspiring on many levels. What is it that makes this one, that much better than the others; did he finally find the right pepper? Was it the fact that he photographed peppers more than 30 times? Or, is there some other magical ingredient involved? Is it a combination of composition and exposure; inspiration and execution?

 I’ve also been inspired by several of Weston’s images showing the details of his Point Lobos backyard; the cypress and stonecrop, and of course those pebbly beaches. I’m quite certain repetition is one of the ingredients of his success. It also occurs to me, the images that are most memorable often show rather intimate details in near abstraction. The most successful of his images transcend design and subject matter, to connect with the viewer on a universal level.