Ha, you thought I'd give up after one day.

Want to hear a secret? Me too, so that's why I had this blog post scheduled to post on May 12 (so hopefully I arranged this blog correctly) but I wrote it on May 11. I am such a sneak.

The second assignment I did for my photography class was an HDR, or High Dynamic Range, shoot. These type of photographs include both light and dark elements, a wide range of exposures. The process to take these photographs is to shoot at least seven photographs of the same scene, tripod required. First, you find the correct exposure, or "normal" exposure. Then, you take a photograph under exposed by three stops, then another one under exposed by two stops, and so on, until you have a photograph that is over exposed by three stops, thus leaving you with seven pictures of the same scene, most of them horrendous. I liked to shoot at least eight pictures, just to add some more options to the mix. After you import the photographs into Lightroom, export the pictures to Photomatix Pro, which will automatically combine the pictures you took and include the darkest parts and lightest parts to create a merged photograph with impressive highlights and shadows.

I must admit, I am not a big fan of HDR photography. It looks fake to me, and almost always overdone. I have seen pictures that really look great with HDR, but overall, I wouldn't do HDR on my own time. Of course, however, since it was assigned, I had to experiment.

The three following pictures are the HDR shots I submitted for class.

   This photograph of the grass is my favorite. It was a windy day, so you can see the movement of the grass. The clouds are overexposed, though.     This picture is the one I am printing for class. It was the one that turned out the best, in my opinion. Kind of a boring photo, but it does the job.

   I have always loved this farm! It's located in such a pretty spot, nestled on the top of a hill, surrounded by more sweeping hills of grass.