Less Elvis, originally uploaded by LightAsMagic.

While attending the National Geographic Traveler photography workshop, I engaged in a conversation with Dan Westergren (Nat Geo Traveler senior photo editor) regarding HDR. He jokingly described it as the Velvet Elvis of photography. A compliment in some circles I’m sure.  He was open to the discussion and I learned quite a bit from him over the weekend.  During the photo review session I plotted against Dan and his ‘old school’ beliefs.  I knew Dan wasn’t going to be swayed into publishing HDR images in the next issue of Traveler, but I did think I would get the rest of the class on my side…….and maybe that would convince him.  The excitement grew as my straight images were being reviewed.  Soon, the class would witness the power of HDR and Dan would have to succumb to the will of the people!  Pow, it hit the screen like $#!+ hits the fan!!!  What was this monstrosity.  On the projector it looked nothing like it did the night before while I was processing it.  I knew I shouldn’t have helped my wife finish that lemon drop martini at dinner.  Halos, saturation, cartoony…it was all wrong.   I still think the class dug it.  Probably because it was so foreign, I mean dramatic. But Dan wasn’t going to have any of it.  Although my plan failed, Dan was still a good sport about the whole thing.  I reprocessed the image during lunch and re-presented it.  Although Dan admitted he was impressed with it I wouldn’t  get your hopes up, I doubt any HDR will be making its way into future issues of Traveler.  Unless of course, Bob has something to say about it!

This image is the reprocessed image.  I like it much better than the Velvet Elvis.

9 Images > NX2 (Raw conversion) > Photomatix 3.2 (Exposure Fusion) > Photoshop (lens flare correction, saturation bump, contrast bump, sharpen) > Blog

Camera: Nikon D300

Lens: Tokina 11-16

Filter: Nikon CPII

Tripod: Gitzo

Head: Markins Q3T