Wharf
American Artists Gallery: Wow! Where is this (Wharf)? And how did you get this shot?
Bill Brignoni: (This is) Channel Islands Harbor, in Oxnard. It's five exposures merged, blended and tone mapped in Photoshop's CS5 (HDR).
AAG: Did you purposely take each of those 5 images, or did you pick them from a larger group of shots? Was it your intention to do this at the time you shot or did it come together afterward?
BB: It’s a process known as "High Dynamic Range" or HDR photography. You make the conscious decision at the time of capture. Some images may contain 9 exposures range. It all depends on the tonal values of the particular scene you’re trying to capture. You meter the scene at "0" then you bracket your shots accordingly up and down -1 -2 0 1+ 2+ or half stop increments depending on what your desired outcome is to be.
In the case of this image (Wharf), I had a setting sun on my right, so I was quickly losing light (desired), and by exposing at the different values I was able to capture the shadows as they filled with the "dropping" sunlight and catch the hue and glow as the sun settled. After processing the image, it just became a matter of tweaking the colors for the surreal/painted like effect in the final rendering…
In the case of this image (Wharf), I had a setting sun on my right, so I was quickly losing light (desired), and by exposing at the different values I was able to capture the shadows as they filled with the "dropping" sunlight and catch the hue and glow as the sun settled. After processing the image, it just became a matter of tweaking the colors for the surreal/painted like effect in the final rendering…
Tree
