Went to San Juan yesterday and thought I would share some pictures Traffic was terrible going up and coming back. Only spent about 2 hrs on location and kids were everywhere. Guess during the week they have school field trips. Good timing !!! (note: this is not a critique)

Of course the sun was out in full force which dictates one of two thing when shooting outdoors. Either accept the fact that you are not going to be able to capture the full exposure range of the images with the dynamic range limitations of your camera or shoot HDR. I chose the latter. I wasn't about to spend 6 hrs on the road for a two hr visit just to come home with something I wasn't going to be happy with.

I have other pictures but I haven't process them yet. Some of these were shot HDR and pano combined and enhanced in Photoshop.

Basically, same image shot at 4 or 5 different exposures depending on subject, repeated the process on each pan to get the pano. Ended up with around 25 - 35 pictures of the same subject. In most cases, its better to have too many pictures then not enough.
Processed HDR first on each section, then combined into a pano. Then used Photoshop to overlap the original image to make any corrections or adjustments, using layer masks on particular areas that needed it. De-saturated and adjusted some color here and there. Also added some clouds in two of them for effect and remove some people in the shots.

I used Canon 40D live view mode and histogram to roughly determine my exposure and as I proceeded through the exposure range, concentrated on getting detail in all available brightness ranges I wanted to capture (using my preview screen).

They look much better larger but you get the idea. When ever you shrink down an image like this they get a little contrasty.

My thoughts.....
In this new age of photography, we are becoming more artistic then technical. I couldn't do this back when I was shooting film. Back then, you either trusted your camera to do the exposure calculations or took your best shot at it manually. Either way, you either were very good (and technical) at getting your exposure or never really got it right in the fist place and it was corrected in development.
Some painters, if not most, use the method of shooting the location on film and producing a painting from the results. Very similar to what I've done here. I think we have begun to see a new form of expression for photographers where we can now become more creative in our photography. We are becoming more like painters and creators of art then photographers. The question is when does it stop becoming photography and become more of a creation. When does the line get crossed ?










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Who cares whether it's art or photography...your photos "ROCK" Arley...

Picture #4 is my favorite.

Don