Approaching the Overpass

Norma was driving home and so I was able to occupy the "photographer's seat". We were approaching the Great Western Higfhway overpass, just west of Katoomba and there was the picture. No HDR but just a smidgen of Nik Color Efex "Detail Extractor". In the extra I have posted the frame I shot just on the other side.

YESTERDAY'S BLIP

26 people commented up until 6:39 PM, 16/6/20 Sydney time.
14 people preferred the bottom one
6 people preferred the top one
9 people (some of whom ultimately preferred one or the other) expressed difficulty in forming a conclusion.

Below I have attached a short analysis of my own views. Please don't feel obliged to read it if yesterdays blip was of little interest.

MY TAKE ON YESTERDAY (very much a personal view)

There are places in the lower image where much detail is drowned to some extent in shadow. Accordingly the image enjoys the kind of contrast and moderately saturated colour that we are trained to accept in a reasonably competent photograph. It is seen as “clear”.

While the top picture lacks the immediate clarity of the lower one, the HDR processing has tamed the highlights and enhanced the shadow areas in a way that we are trained NOT to expect in a conventional photograph. When I was actually there, I could see all those details even if the camera sensor (in a single exposure) could not. In reproducing the details here we tend to see them as unnatural … as being too obviously “HDR”. Perhaps it is more truthfully a case of “unnatural for what we think a photograph may legitimately contain”. In any event the picture is relatively low in contrast, appears too saturated to be true and much less clear than the alternative. At the same time it cannot be ignored that the picture shows distinct HDR processing artefacts such that the background on one side of a tree or post sometimes looks slightly different to the background on the other side etc.

To my mind, however, the disorienting HDR rendering offers issues for consideration beyond the merely technical. Does it make me feel things that the other doesn’t? Does it offer a faint magical quality that I associate with my childhood? In looking at it, do I expect that something fanciful might happen that could not be expected in the universe to which the more technically literal image belongs? Does it make me feel cheery or depressed or anxious or relaxed … or anything at all? Is the feeling more important than the mere seeing?

I am asking myself a lot of questions about my approach to landscapes. By agreeing to comment as you so kindly did yesterday, you have helped me to begin to answer them. Thank you one and all.