Abstract HDR Sunrise in the Swedish Archipelago

At 4 am yesterday morning I took the ten source images for a High Dynamic Range composite photo of a sunrise in the Swedish archipelago.

HDR photography essentially a computerized effect. You take multiple photos of the same scene at different exposures, stick them in a specialized program, toggle some settings and pretend that the effect is a product of your own sheer skill.

I used Photomatix to do my dirty work. You can also use Photoshop with a plugin from the guys who make Photomatix. There are probably other programs too.

HDR photography is intended to be a method to display a fuller image than conventionally possible by merging together the different appropriately areas from the source photos into one all appropriately exposed image. As you can see from the thumbnail which isn’t really properly exposed anywhere, this is not the only potential use for the technique. It can also be a technique for creating really surreal, moody images by playing with the saturations of different areas.

There is a nice tutorial on High Dynamic Range photography at Abduzeedo which is worth checking out if you are at all interested in trying to get similar results to the above, or just play around. Photomatix is available for Mac and Windows.