Night-time in America's small towns
1–10 of 66 posts
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#2Very atmospheric, and reminded me of this [1] from a few months ago.
[1] Striking Portraits of Lonely Cars in 1970s New York http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/striking-portraits-of-l...
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#3Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#4Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
I disagree, the poor quality and bad HDR really detracted from the images for me, they were painful to look at.
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#5Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
I disagree, the poor quality and bad HDR really detracted from the images for me, they were painful to look at.
Totally honest question here: can you be very specific about what caused these photos to be painful for you to look at? I have no formal photographic training but I have always taken a lot of pictures, and I've been told that some of them are good. I do know what HDR is, gleaned from various hacker news posts over the years.
What is painful about these photos, to you?
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, the poor quality and bad HDR really detracted from the images for me, they were painful to look at.
Totally honest question here: can you be very specific about what caused these photos to be painful for you to look at? I have no formal photographic training but I have always taken a lot of pictures, and I've been told that some of them are good. I do know what HDR is, gleaned from various hacker news posts over the years. What is painful about these photos, to you?
It's funny, now it's called HDR (for high dynamic range) but really you are compressing the "dynamic range" to make details visible that otherwise would be washed out or too dark.
This has been a regular part of photography from the darkroom days, manipulating the exposure time, masking parts to selectively reduce exposure, "burning in" other parts. Especially with BW photography.
The sort of other-worldly crispness, details, and groomed highlights can be upsetting to some people. But it sets this type of photography apart from say, documentary images and instead tries for a kind of art.
Not everybody is familiar with this sort of photography.
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#7Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
I disagree, the poor quality and bad HDR really detracted from the images for me, they were painful to look at.
I'm no HDR expert but these shots don't appear to have been made with the standard HDR technique of stacking exposures. I didn't see anything stating that he'd used HDR in the article text either.
There's a couple of shots that look like they might been exposed for the night sky with soft flash used to light the foreground. e.g. the cars art installation and the desert tree.
If they had been made using standard HDR techniques I would have expected the street lights not to have blown out quite so much.
I could very well be wrong though, as I said, I have only a passing knowledge of HDR. If anyone knows for sure I'd love to hear about the techniques used.
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#8Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
They remind me of screen caps from someone's Fallout 4 mod. They're nice to look at, but at the same time they do look over-manipulated and fake.
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#9Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
I disagree, the poor quality and bad HDR really detracted from the images for me, they were painful to look at.
Where you see HDR, I see carefully considered exposure parameters, skillful use of lighting - the article mentions that Freeman used his car headlights - and maybe a CPL. Can you point to something that might substantiate your statement here, or is it just that you're unused to seeing these sorts of effects produced without tricks like exposure stacking?
Re: Night-time in America's small towns
#10Regardless of your opinion on the subject matter, I can unreservedly recommend this piece as a sublime example of the photographer's art.
They remind me of screen caps from someone's Fallout 4 mod. They're nice to look at, but at the same time they do look over-manipulated and fake.
Or like Daniel Freeman really knows how to use a camera. Digital makes it easier, but there's nothing here that couldn't be done with film. Understanding how exposure parameters like shutter speed and aperture work, and what a careful selection of lens-mounted filters can do, goes a very long way.
I'm only an interested amateur, not a professional photographer. But if you want to pick one of the photos from that article, I'll explain how it was created, to the best of my understanding, and how one might go about creating something similar without any need of multiple exposures or Photoshop trickery.