Gawker
Not everybody's so impressed by high dynamic range photography. The relatively novel technique, which produced the gloomy Gotham cityscape we published yesterday, can also be used simply to pump up an image with color. Cheesy. Nikola Tamindzic's first nightlife pictures for Gawker made heavy use of filters in Photoshop, the standard photo manipulation software. But the photographer has gradually weaned himself off Photoshop and eschews HDR programs such as Photomatix. Here's a panorama of downtown New York (from Nikola's Home of the Vain portfolio site) using traditional means.
It's dodging and burning, old skool stuff, like Ansel Adams used to do in the darkroom. You select parts to darken and parts to lighten to approximate the way your brain perceives the scene (rather than what the eye actually sees). The confusion between brain perception and eye vision leads to a lot of purist bullshit from people regarding retouching etc. because they think that what camera sees is true—it's just not. everything gets reinterpreted in our brains, and good post-production (like dodging and burning, or judicious HDR) is pretty much that same thing. Post-production used to excess is like doing acid, haha—perception goes awry, and it's very interesting—but mostly just to the person doing the drug.
Comments
The dark night returns.
Get. Rebecca. To PUTTHATSHITAFTERTHEJUMP.
Do jaja!
I feel vindicated about my rant on the HDR pic of the day.
Sort of amazing that you were able to limit the veiling flare with those bazillion candlepower flood lights shining in the pit. Nice shot, Nikola!
I would gladly trade all Gawker's fine art photography for some Blue States Lose. In the name of sweet, weeping Wotan, please bring on some drunken losers, stat.
Honestly, I prefer this technique. For me, it more reflects the NYC I know through my naked eyes. Whenever I take pics, I hate that it never comes out with the colors and nuances my eyes see.
I really like this and please keep it coming.
Wow. This photo is REALLY chill.
Big ups to Ground Z!
(I miss you WTC...)
@BadUncle:
What happend to BSL? I used to love that. I actually saw that Misshapes: The Book travesty in a store recently and thought of it.
Yes, yes, and yes. Also, that's a very good shot, free of "trippy" visual effects (other than the art of exposure used correctly), and those damn people at Moody's at 7WTC are actually pretty lucky for the view they're getting, even if it is somewhat macabre at the moment.
It's understandable that people kinda like HDRI on first glance, but most people who use it are indeed extremely cheesy. There are some very good HDR tone-mapped images out there but those are the ones where you wouldn't know unless you were a photographer. Again, it's about good exposure, not about "playing with the slider to get wacky colors".
Oohh! Someone do Denver like this!
This is so cool ! I can actually see the light on in my apartment. Thank goodness I'm flying back from London tomorrow so I can see what fucker is in there. Minewhile Denton enough with the making non New Yorker located New Yorkers homesick.
I really like the effect, and encourage more pics like this (and the linked previous one).
Ooooohooohooh, sorry, a touch of vertigo kicked in.
Tangental, but... Isn't it amazing that NYC is in a real estate boom, but the WTC site is still-basically-a hole in the ground?
That shit crazy. Likes!
@HOPSCOTCH: I agree with the homesick comment, but I like it too.
Sorry if I'm dumb, but is he talking about traditional ol' dodging and burning, or is this some digital version of d&b? Please tell me how I can make this and impress people, despite having zero photography skills. Thanks.
Aw. I feel a little sorry for XSTEVIEDX, he of the linked-to HDR example. It's overdramatic, but not one of the worse ones out there.
I like this photograph a lot for its control of light and darkness at a very tricky site. I have little photographic skills beyond point-and-shoot, so I'm mad jealous.
A pity the West Street Building (it's the mansarded one to the left and center) looks like a dwarf in nearly any shot of the site--it's one of the most beautiful structures in the whole city. Folks, if you're ever in the neighbordhood, take your binoculars or a camera with a zoom lens for a good look at the top, it's got a mesmerizing amount of decorative detail.
I happen to live in the top floor of the building in the center-right of this shot. Looking the other way, here's my photo, sans Photoshop OR knowing a goddamn thing about taking good photos:
[www.flickr.com]
Keep them coming Nick, very nice
It is nice, but it makes me have a sad.
@BettyCrocker: Yeah. The video/photos of the awful day upset me less than the photos of the towers alive and well, or of the pit.
Wouldn't the best memorial for the dead be a living, working building? Can we get to it?
@BadUncle: Well, I like the photo, but I love BSL!!! (Also, not to get all broken-record-y, but my Mondays aren't the same without you know who! Um, Wookie? A little help?)
@rex: Nice details, thanks.
By "novel," you mean "something nearly every photographer on Flickr made into a cliché 3 years ago." I take nothing away from Nikola's photographs (in fact I'm a fan, and this is good HDR). But its overuse and the truly awful results have caused a lot of people to react to HDR like it was a velvet painting of Elvis.
Looks pretty cool to me!
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